CHARGES DISMISSED AGAINST ORGANIZERS OF SAILING RACE TO CUBA

    James Lawrence King, a district federal judge, dismissed charges Friday against the organizers of a sailboat race from Key West to Cuba, who were accused of violating the Trading With The Enemy Act. U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King dismissed the indictment against Peter Goldsmith and Michele Geslin. But the charges were dismissed without prejudice to the United States to seek a superseding indictment, which means they could press other charges.

    Carlos B. Castillo, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office, said his office is reviewing the decision and exploring its options. Goldsmith and Geslin had been charged with two counts of providing unlicensed travel services to Cuba. If convicted of both counts, they could have faced a sentence of 15 years. Crews competing in the Key West Sailing Club Conch Republic Cup departed May 22, 2003 for Havana and several Cuban shore communities after receiving pre-race warnings they would be violating U.S. Department of Commerce licensing regulations.

    SENATOR KERRY ASKS CHÁVEZ TO STOP "POLITICAL PERSECUTIONS"

    U.S. democrat candidate John Kerry urged the Venezuelan president to end the  "political persecutions" and his support to "the anti-democratic forces in the region." In a communiqué, Kerry said that the presidential recall referendum held in Venezuela last August offered Chávez the "historical" opportunity to lead the country in a new direction and that "unfortunately" he has taken the opposite path.

    Instead of working with the Venezuelan opposition, Chávez "has chosen persecution against some players, alleging the "crime" of having accepted a small grant from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) aimed at promoting the recall vote, said Kerry's campaign command, in an allusion to the action taken by the government against the directors of the NGO Súmate.

    BIN LADEN SAID: "THE BEST WAY TO AVOID ANOTHER DISASTER" WAS NOT TO PROVOKE THE ARABçS WRATH  -- IS BIN LADEN ENDORSING SENATOR KERRY? 

    Osama bin Laden, reading a statement to the American people in a new videotape aired Friday, directly admitted for the first time that he ordered the Sept. 11 attacks of September 11, 2001, which killed nearly 3,000 people and said "the best way to avoid another Manhattan" was to stop threatening Muslims' security. The video, broadcast on Al-Jazeera, showed bin Laden with a long gray beard, wearing traditional white robes, a turban and a golden cloak reading from papers in front of a plain, brown curtain.

    "We decided to destroy towers in America," bin Laden said, referring to the World Trade Center. "God knows that it had not occurred to our mind to attack the towers, but after our patience ran out and we saw the injustice and inflexibility of the American-Israeli alliance toward our people in Palestine and Lebanon, this came to my mind," he said. He accused President Bush of "misleading" the American people since the 2001 suicide airline hijackings that hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

    "Your security is not in the hands of (Democratic candidate John) Kerry or Bush or al-Qaida. Your security is in your own hands," bin Laden said. "To the U.S. people, my talk is to you about the best way to avoid another disaster," he said. "I tell you: security is an important element of human life and free people do not give up their security." "If Bush says we hate freedom, let him tell us why we didn't attack Sweden, for example. It is known that those who hate freedom do not have dignified souls, like those of the 19 blessed ones," he said, referring to the 19 hijackers. 

    AL-QAEDA TERRORIST: "THE STREETS OF AMERICA WILL RUN RED WITH BLOOD OF AMERICA'S VICTIMS" 

    ABC News aired videotape last night of a purported American member of al Qaeda declaring that a new series of terrorist attacks against the United States could come "at any moment." The CIA said that the video bears "all the trademarks of an al Qaeda production."  Federal investigator does not know the identity of the man on the tape. Officials have been unable to match the speakerçs voice to any known al Qaeda supporter or sympathizer.

    The speaker, face obscured by a headdress and identified only as "Azam the American", says on the videotape: "No, my fellow countrymen, you are guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. You are as guilty as Bush and Cheney. Youçre as guilty as Rumsfeld and Ashcroft and Powell."  The man continued: "After decades of American tyranny and oppression, now itçs your turn to die. Allah willing, the streets of America will run red with blood of Americaçs victims."  The man speaks in accented English.

    IACH ACCEPTS TO INVESTIGATE RIGHT ABUSES IN CUBA

    The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said Friday it will open an investigation on Cuba for arresting and jailing dissidents and executing hijackers, the first such move in five years. The IACHR, part of the Organization of American States, announced the decision after its regular three-week period of sessions, when judges examine human rights abuses in the Americas. The IACHR investigation of Cuba is likely to have little practical effect for more than 70 dissidents in jail since March and April of last year, following a crackdown on the opposition.

    Cuba does not recognize the authority of the IACHR.  The Cuban government has declined to send attorneys to its sessions. It refuses to allow its missions to visit the island and IACHR written requests for information are returned unanswered. The IACHR investigation, the first since 1999, could lead to a negative report for Cuba that would provide ammunition for human rights groups and countries to condemn Cuban leader Fidel Castro. It would also be a symbolic victory for the dissident movement on the Caribbean island.

    ''Large-scale violations of public freedom continue in Cuba, particularly for the right to political participation and of free expression, and the systematic repression against dissidents, human rights activists and independent journalists,'' said José Zalaquett, the IACHR's president. During the crackdown last year, three ferry hijackers were quickly tried and executed in a process Zalaquett described as a ``masquerade of justice.'' The IACHR agrees to investigate an alleged abuse when domestic appeals have been exhausted, or when there are few guarantees that defendants will have access to a fair and speedy trial.

    RUSSIA TIED TO IRAQ'S MISSING EXPLOSIVES 

    Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation. John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.

    "The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units," Shaw said. "Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units."   Shaw, who was in charge of cataloging the tons of conventional arms provided to Iraq by foreign suppliers, said he recently obtained reliable information on the arms-dispersal program from two European intelligence services that have detailed knowledge of the Russian-Iraqi weapons collaboration.

    Most of Saddam's most powerful arms were systematically separated from other arms like mortars, bombs and rockets, and sent to Syria and Lebanon, and possibly to Iran, he said. The Russian involvement in helping disperse Saddam's weapons, including some 380 tons of RDX and HMX, is still being investigated, Mr. Shaw said. The RDX and HMX, which are used to manufacture high-explosive and nuclear weapons, are probably of Russian origin, he said. Disclosure of the missing explosives Monday in a New York Times story was used by Sen. John Kerry, who accused the Bush administration of failing to secure the material.

    UN VOTES AGAINST U.S. EMBARGO ON CUBA

    Friends and adversaries of the United States voted in the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday against the four-decade-old American economic, financial and commercial embargo against Cuba. The vote, conducted for the 13th consecutive year, was 179 to 4 with one abstention on the resolution opposing the embargo. The United States, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands voted "no" and Micronesia abstained. Cuba has been under a U.S. trade and travel embargo since Fidel Castro defeated a CIA-backed assault at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. In subsequent years, some foreign firms have been threatened with penalties for dealing with Cuba.

    The U.S. delegate said Cuba has shown no interest implementing economic reforms that would lead to democratic change or a free market. "The Cuban government is not a victim as it contends. Rather it is a tyrant, aggressively punishing anyone who dares to have a differing opinion," said Oliver Garza, a State Department adviser.

    Members of the European Union, along with such U.S. allies as Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, voted for the resolution, which is nonbinding. They again objected to the "extra-territorial" effects of U.S. legislation that punishes non-U.S. firms for commercial dealings with Cuba. Garza denied the United States was denying Cuba food and medicine, saying its had licensed over $1.1 billion in sales and donations since 1992 and agricultural goods worth more than $5 billion since 2001. In addition remittances amounted to about $1 billion a year, he said.

    BRAZIL WANTS TO ALLEVIATE CUBAçS ELECTRICITY CRISIS

    Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has promised Cuban dictator Fidel Castro help to deal with an electricity crisis, a spokesman said on Wednesday. Lula called Castro on Tuesday to inquire about his health after he shattered a kneecap last week in a fall. He said Brazil's Energy Minister Dilma Rousseff would bring "a proposal of support" for Cuba's energy sector when she travels to a conference of Latin American energy ministers in Venezuela this week, a presidential spokesman said.

    Cuba has been hit by a paralyzing energy crisis since May when its largest power plant in Matanzas broke down. In September the country adopted an emergency plan to save energy, by shutting more than 100 factories and reducing opening hours for shops. Lula's Workers' Party has long-standing ties with Castro's Cuba and despite its turn toward the center and adoption of market-friendly policies since Lula took office in January 2003, many of its members are close to Castro.

    THE DICTATOR SAYS U.S. SANCTIONS PROMPT HIM TO ELIMINATE DOLLAR  -  OTHERS THINK IT WAS THE FALL

    Cuban dictator Fidel Castro said "adios" to the Yankee dollar that shored up Cubaçs struggling economy for a decade, launching a two-week process Tuesday to eliminate the U.S. currency from circulation in the stores and businesses. This action was taken in response to stepped-up American sanctions. Castro said widespread use of the currency of his country's No. 1 enemy, once seen as a necessary evil to stay afloat after losing Soviet aid and trade, would be halted to guarantee Cuba's economic independence.

    A local currency known as the convertible Cuban peso will be the only money accepted at most businesses across the island of 11.2 million people beginning Nov. 8, Castro's statement said. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Cuba was a major client of Moscow, Havana was not nearly as reliant on the U.S. dollar or other convertible currencies because it engaged in barter trade with other countries.

    But after Cuba lost Soviet and other East Bloc trading partners with the end of the Cold War, the country increasingly relied on dollars to finance needed imports. By removing the U.S. currency from circulation, Castro is effectively and symbolically switching his hard currency base to that of other foreign currencies, including the European Union's euro, the British sterling pound and the Canadian dollar.

    NO ONE WANTS CONVERTIBLE PESOS, THE "CHAVITOS" ARE WORTHLESS BEYOND THE CUBANS SHORES

    The Bush administration called it a ploy by Castro to prop up a bankrupt system on the backs of his people. "Castro will not only now attempt to pool these U.S. dollars for his own profit, but also is doing so by shaking down the Cuban people with a 10-percent penalty for the currency exchange," said Juan Carlos Zarate, the U.S. Treasury Department's Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime. "Itçs an act of economic desperation," Zarate said. "In typical Castro fashion, his solution to this problem is to implement a measure that will directly benefit and bring profit to his regime, while hurting the Cuban people," he added.

    "Because of the bankruptcy of Castro's policies and economics, the freedom- starved people of Cuba depend on remittances from their families living in the United States to survive. The Bush administration will continue to apply pressure to Castro and his cronies, working toward a day when the Cuban people are free to build the strong democracy and a thriving economy denied them by the Castro regime," Zarate said.  Castro told Cubans to tell relatives to now send family remittances in euros, British pounds, Canadian dollars, Swiss francs - anything but U.S. dollars. A 10-percent commission will be charged for changing dollars into pesos, but not for other currencies.

    As of Nov. 8, the Central Bank decreed that Cubans, foreign residents and tourists will have to use locally printed convertible pesos, pegged at present to the dollar, for cash purchases in stores, restaurants and other businesses. Many Cubans with government jobs also receive part of their salaries in the convertible pesos - known as "chavitos" - that officially trade one-to-one with the U.S. dollar. However, they have no valued beyond Cuban shores.

    U.S. NATIONALS BARRED FROM SENDING MONEY TO CUBA THROUGH SERCUBA

    The Bush administration announced Monday that it was barring U.S. nationals from using SerCuba, a money-transfer company, to send remittances to the island. The Treasury Department added SerCuba to its list of Specially Designated Nationals, meaning that U.S. citizens and residents are forbidden from engaging in any transactions with the firm and that any assets belonging to the firm in the hands of U.S. nationals would be blocked.

    SerCuba, Treasury said in a statement, operates under Cuban law and is supported by Cimex, a state-run trading company. SerCuba allows people subject to U.S. jurisdiction to send cash to Cuba via third countries or through its website ( www.sercu ba.com), according to the Bush administration. ''Today, we are financially isolating SerCuba to make it more difficult for the Cuban regime to obtain the hard currency it uses to oppress its own people and to prop up its government,'' said Juan Carlos Zarate, the Treasury's assistant secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime.

    SerCuba was launched in August by the Cuban Telecommunications Company (ETECSA), just weeks after the Bush administration announced rules aimed at toughening the embargo against the island. Anyone found guilty of doing business with SerCuba is subject to criminal prosecution and fines. SerCuba allows the island's residents to use a debit card on the remittances they receive from Italy and Spain, the two countries where SerCuba operates outside of Cuba. The debit card is free, and senders pay a transfer fee that starts at 13 euros or $16.50.  The average cost of sending remittances to Cuba is 12 percent of the money sent, according to a May 2004 IDB study, the highest rate in Latin America.

    CHÁVEZ-SPONSORED CONTENT LAW SAID TO BE SIMILAR TO CUBAçS

    David Natera Febres, owner of the Venezuelan newspaper Correo del Caroní, said a media content law President Hugo Chávez is trying to pass in the National Assembly is similar to press restrictions prevailing in Cuba. Natera's statements came during the 60th Annual Assembly of the Inter-American Press Association in Guatemala.

    "In Cuba there are some accomplished facts that have totally cut off freedom of speech in that country for a long time now. This ideological trend has found echo in Venezuela. Chávez is handing over the country to the Cuban dictator, and the steps necessary to eliminate freedoms in Venezuela are being adopted," Natera said as quoted by news agency AP. According to Danilo Arbilla, former president of the IAPA Committee on Freedom of Speech, "Venezuela is faced with a serious problem. It is not about sequestering freedom of speech, but completing a project of domination and suppression of every possible freedom."

      CHAIN OF TELEVISION STATIONS AIRED THE DOCUMENTARY "STOLEN HONOR" 

     Stolen Honor accuses Sen. John Kerry of betraying American prisoners during the Vietnam and focuses on Kerry's antiwar testimony to Congress in 1971 and its effect on American POWs in Vietnam. Kerry testified that American forces routinely committed atrocities in Vietnam. The film, produced independently of Sinclair, includes interviews with former POWs who say their Vietnamese captors used Kerry's comments to undercut prisoner morale and prolonged their captivity.

    IN SPITE OF "THE WASHINGTON POST" AND "GRANMA," PRESIDENT BUSH HAS FIVE POINTS LEAD OVER SENATOR KERRY

     President Bush commands a five percentage point lead over Sen. John Kerry in the race for president among likely voters in a CNN/USA Today/ Gallup opinion poll published today. Fifty-one percent of likely voters said they would back Bush, and 46 percent expressed support for Kerry. The margin of error for this subset of respondents also is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

    They remain tied among registered voters, according to the poll. Of the 1,461 registered voters polled, 49 percent reported support for Bush and 47 percent said they would vote for Kerry.  The two percentage point difference falls within the poll's 3 percentage point margin of error and which constitutes a statistical dead heat.

    This week's poll results show little change from responses of likely voters surveyed between October 14 and 16. In the previous survey, 52 percent of likely voters said they would vote for the president and 44 percent said they would vote for the Massachusetts senator. In each of the weeks' polls, one percent of voters said they would cast ballots for third-party candidate Ralph Nader. Slightly more than half, 51 percent, of respondents said they approved of how President Bush is handling his role, and 46 percent reported disapproval. Today's Washington Post shows Senator Kerry 1 percent over President Bush.

    IAEA: 380 TONS OF IRAQ EXPLOSIVES MISSING 

   Some 380 tons of explosives, powerful enough to detonate nuclear warheads, are missing from a former Iraqi military facility that was supposed to be under American control, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog says. Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said that the Iraqi interim government reported several days ago that the explosives were missing from the Al Qaqaa complex, south of Baghdad.

    The explosives -- considered powerful enough to demolish buildings or detonate nuclear warheads -- were under IAEA control until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. IAEA workers left the country before the fighting began. "Our immediate concern is that if the explosives did fall into the wrong hands they could be used to commit terrorist acts and some of the bombings that we've seen," Fleming said. There are hundreds of tons of other weapons and munitions missing around the country, and it is impossible for the United States to track down all of them, a U.S. official said.

    THE CUBAN DICTATOR IS VERY UPSET BECAUSE HE HAS NOT RECEIVED ANY DEMONSTRATION OF "AFFECTION" FROM THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION

    The communist government of Cuba criticizes U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher for declining Thursday to wish Castro a speedy recovery. "What else can be expected," an official statement said, from U.S. officials "who howl at the mere mention of the word Fidel?"

    Expressing uncertainty about the seriousness of Castro's injuries, spokesman Richard Boucher said, "I guess you'd have to check with the Cubans to find out what's broken about Mr. Castro." He added: "We, obviously, have expressed our views about what's broken in Cuba." Asked specifically whether he wishes the 78-year old leader a speedy recovery, Boucher  categorically said, "NO," acknowledging that Castro's health is of little concern to the administration.

    PRESIDENT BUSH: KERRY SUFFERS "ELECTION AMNESIA"

    President Bush said Saturday that Sen. John Kerry must be suffering from "election amnesia" because he has forgotten that he once viewed Saddam Hussein as a threat to America. After voting to authorize force against the former Iraqi leader, after calling it the right decision when the Bush administration sent troops into Iraq, Kerry now calls the conflict the "wrong war," Bush said.

    "Sen. Kerry seems to have forgotten all that as his position has evolved during the course of the campaign," Bush said at the first stop on a hectic day of campaigning in a state critical for both campaigns. "You might call it election amnesia."

    "The choice in this election could not be clearer," Bush said. "You cannot lead our nation to the decisive victory on which the security of every American family depends if you do not see the true dangers of the post-Sept. 11 world." "Kerry was recently asked how September the 11th had changed him," Bush said. "He replied `It didn't change me much at all."

    NEW IRAQI ARMY SOLDIERS MASSACRED IN AMBUSH

    In one of their boldest and most brutal attacks yet, insurgents waylaid three minibuses carrying U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers heading home on leave and massacred about 50 of them - many of them shot in the head execution-style, officials said Sunday. A claim of responsibility posted on an Islamist Web site attributed the attack to followers of Jordanian-born terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

    The unarmed Iraqi soldiers were killed on their way home after completing a training course at the Kirkush military camp northeast of Baghdad when their buses were stopped Saturday evening by terrorists near the Iranian border about 95 miles east of Baghdad, Interior Ministry spokesman Adnan Abdul-Rahman said. Some accounts by police said the rebels were dressed in Iraqi military uniforms.

    Abdul-Rahman said 37 bodies were found Sunday on the ground with their hands behind their backs, shot in the head execution-style. Twelve others were found in a burned bus, he said. Some officials quoted witnesses as saying the terrorists fired rocket-propelled grenades at one bus. In a Web site posting, the al-Qaida in Iraq, formerly known as Tawhid and Jihad, claimed responsibility for the ambush, saying ''God enabled the Mujahedeen to kill all'' the soldiers and ''seize two cars and money.''

    HUGO CHÁVEZ SAYS HE WILL SEND TROOPS TO CONFISCATE UNUSED FARMLANDS FROM WEALTHY LANDOWNERS

    Hugo Chavez stepped up the pressure on wealthy landowners Saturday, saying he will send troops to confiscate unused farmland if large property owners refuse to give up the land to help the poor. Outlining what he dubbed "the new stage of the revolution," Chavez, a self-proclaimed revolutionary, declared "war against large estates," saying they were an obstacle for ensuring more equality in this oil-rich, but poverty-stricken, South American country of 25 million.

    Owners of large plots of land have two choices, he said: give up their land or have the army take it away. "The second option is conflict," Chavez told supporters at a rally in the capital, Caracas. "We will take the land with army troops," Chavez, who enacted sweeping land reforms four years ago, has issued the warnings before. But his comments Saturday are the most strident in months.

    Authorities have used the Land Law, which was passed in 2000, as their legal basis for confiscating property from wealthy landowners. The law mainly imposes strict rules on what ranchers and farmers can produce, but also permits the state to grant state-owned land to the homeless. But private land owners claim that authorities have made numerous errors in classifying lands as state-owned or private. Many ranchers and business leaders fear Chavez's land reform initiative is part of an effort to establish a socialist regime in the country.

    THE DICTATOR DETERMINED TO KEEP POWER AFTER THE FALL

    Cuban dictator Fidel Castro will likely be off his feet for several weeks recovering from a fractured knee and arm, but experts said they don't expect the 78-year-old Cuban ruler to delegate any authority beyond ceremonial duties. Castro's determination to remain in control became abundantly clear in a lengthy letter he sent to ''compatriots'' and was read by radio and TV broadcasters and published in state-controlled newspapers on Friday. ''From the moment of the fall, I have not stopped attending to the most important tasks that I am responsible for, in coordination with the other comrades,'' he wrote. Through the letter, he was sending a message to those who may have ambitions to replace him.

    Throughout the ordeal, Castro wrote, he used a cell phone to issue orders and refused general anesthesia so that he could "attend to numerous important issues. He refuses even to lose consciousness, losing power in effect, for even a few hours. Should the dictator become unfit to rule or dies, his 73-year-old brother would assume power, as outlined in Cuba's constitution. Raúl Castro heads the armed forces and serves as first vice president to the Communist Party and powerful Council of State.

    Beyond Raúl Castro, there is no official designation in the presidential succession, and Cuba observers said there are only a handful of officials who might fill a No. 3 spot. They include Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque, 39; Vice President Carlos Lage, 53; and National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón, 67. Those are the faces likely to become more visible as Castro recuperates. An analyst said "Castro is going to keep a tight reign. They have to be very careful of not overstepping their boundaries. Even communicating with each other could be considered a conspiracy to take over. Until Castro is flat on his back, can't get up or he's dead, they have to be very discreet."

    FIRST CUBA AND NORTH KOREA, NOW COMMUNIST CHINA ENDORSES SENATOR KERRY 

     John Kerry has gained the support of the largest political party in the world. The People's Daily endorsed the Senator from Massachusetts for President of the United States. "Comparatively speaking, Kerry is noted for being friendly with China. He was once firmly against linking the most-favored-nation status to China with human rights," stated an article on the U.S. Presidential race posted by the official Chinese Central Communist Party news outlet.

    According to the communist Chinese, Kerry looks "squarely at China's position and influence in Asia and the world at large" and that the Democrat candidate opposes "containment of China and stand for contacts with the country." "He said: We need cooperation with China and cannot push Sino-U.S. relationship back to the Cold War period," states the Chinese press. According to the communist officials, Kerry supports the "one-China" principle and opposes "Taiwan independence."

    STATE DEPARTMENT MUM ON CASTROçS HEALTH

    The Bush administration chose Thursday to urge change in Fidel Castro's Cuba rather than speculate on the health of its aging leader. Expressing uncertainty as to the seriousness of Castro's condition following a fall that left him with a fractured knee and arm, spokesman Richard Boucher said, "I guess you'd have to check with the Cubans to find out what's broken about Mr. Castro."

    He added: "We, obviously, have expressed our views about what's broken in Cuba." Asked specifically whether he wishes the 78-year old leader a speedy recovery, Boucher said, "No," acknowledging that Castro's health is of little concern to the administration. In contrast, he said, the situation of the Cuban people is of "enormous importance." Cubans, Boucher said, "have suffered very long" under Castro's rule. "And we think that the kind of rule that Cuba has had should be ended."

    DICTADOR FIDEL CASTRO FRACTURES KNEE, HURTS ARM IN FALL 

    Cuban dictator Fidel Castro fractured his left knee and has a fissure in his right arm after a fall captured on live television, the government said on Thursday. Castro, 78, tripped and fell on Wednesday night as he returned to his seat after speaking for an hour at a graduation ceremony in central Cuba. "His general health is good, and spirits excellent," a brief government statement said.

    Castro's dramatic tumble during a live television broadcast was certain to provoke new questions about how long he can remain at Cuba's helm. The Latin American leftist icon has had trouble walking of late. "He asked that it be made known he is in condition to continue attending to fundamental questions in close cooperation with government and party leaders," the statement said. Castro has led the Western Hemisphere's only Communist country since he came to power in a 1959 revolution, In June 2001, Castro fainted briefly during a speech under a scorching sun. Since then questions about his health have cast uncertainty over Cuba's political future. After the 2001 incident, Castro confirmed that he views his younger brother, Raul, head of Cuba's armed forces and No. 2 in the political hierarchy, as his successor.

    DICTATOR CASTRO TAKES A TUMBLE AFTER GIVING SPEECH

    President Fidel Castro tripped and fell after leaving the stage at a graduation ceremony, but later returned to say that he was ''all in one piece.'' Castro's off-camera tumble after the Wednesday night speech in the central city of Santa Clara was certain to launch a new round of speculation about the 78-year-old communist leader's health after 45 years of rule.

    There was no official word from the government on Castro's condition after he left Santa Clara, about a three-hour drive east of Havana, in his regular black Mercedes Benz. Speaking live on state television less than a minute after his fall, Castro told television viewers across the island of 11.2 million people that he thought he had broken his knee ''and maybe an arm ... but I am all in one piece.''

   ''I will do what is possible to recover as fast as possible, but as you can see I can still talk,'' he said, sweating profusely into his olive green uniform as he sat in a folding chair. ''Even if they put me in a cast, I can continue in my work.'' An Associated Press photographer at the scene said Castro tripped on a concrete step after he finished walking down the stairs from the stage, then fell onto the ground on his right side, first hitting his knee and hip, and then his elbow and arm. He was immediately surrounded by scores of security agents and others who rushed to help him up.

     BRAZILIAN GENERAL BLAMES KERRY FOR WAVE OF VIOLENCE IN HAITI

    Comments made by Sen. John Kerry more than seven months ago may have helped trigger the recent wave of violence afflicting Haiti, according to the Brazilian commander for the U.N. peacekeeping troops in that Caribbean nation. In an interview posted Saturday on the Web site of Agencia Brasil, the Brazilian government's official news agency, Lt. Gen. Augusto Heleno Ribeiro said that comments made in March by Kerry had raised the hopes of supporters of Jean-Bertrand Aristide that the former Haitian president would be able to return to power.

    "Statements made by a candidate to the presidency of the United States created false hopes among pro-Aristide supporters," Ribeiro told the agency. "His (the candidate's) statements created the expectation that instability and a change in American policy would contribute to Aristide's return." Ribeiro was referring to statements made by Kerry to the New York Times on March 7.

    The Democratic presidential candidate told the New York Times that U.S. President George W. Bush's position on Haiti was "shortsighted" and sent "a terrible message" to the region and democracies. Kerry said he would have sent an international force to protect Aristide as rebel forces were threatening to enter the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. Accused of corruption, profiting from cocaine smuggling and using police to suppress his opponents, Aristide left on a U.S.-chartered plane as ex-soldiers leading a bloody rebellion neared Port-au-Prince, the capital. Brazil has kept 1,200 soldiers in Haiti since May as part of a multilateral U.N. force. According to a U.N. resolution in April, the multinational force should have 6,600 soldiers and 1,600 police.

    ABUSE CLAIMS INVESTIGATED AT BAHAMAS DETENTION CENTER 

    Amnesty International has opened a new investigation into allegations of torture and beatings of Cubans and Haitians in a Bahamian holding camp where detainees also have allegedly been denied medical treatment. Detainees describe the Carmichael Detention Center in Nassau, human rights investigators say, as ''a hell-hole'' rife with brutality and void of basic needs.

    Bahamian officials said Tuesday that their preliminary investigation shows the allegations are unfounded, but have asked an independent agency to conduct a inquiry. Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell told The Herald that the allegations appear to be exaggerated.

    Amnesty, which issued a scathing report about the center last year, launched its investigation last week after another rights group visited the camp last month and issued an urgent appeal. Investigators from the Committee to Aid Human Rights Activists, which is based in North Bergen, N.J., said they were horrified by the conditions and treatment of detainees, among them men forced to flee Cuba because of their pro-democracy activities.

    SPAIN CALLS ON CUBA TO RELEASE POLITICAL PRISONERS

    Spain called on Cuba Monday to release all political prisoners in the Socialist government's firmest response yet to Havana's decision to bar a Spanish politician from entering the country to meet with dissidents. The diplomatic flap came amid Spanish efforts to ease tough European Union policy toward Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

    "Cuba should free its political prisoners," Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega told The Associated Press in an interview. "The Cuban government has to make moves," she said. Fernandez de la Vega spoke three days after tensions rose between the two countries when Jorge Moragas, of the conservative Popular Party, and two Dutch colleagues were refused entry upon arrival at Havana airport, a move Fernandez de la Vega described as "unacceptable, intolerable".

    Cuban authorities called the politician's visit a provocation because he was traveling on a tourist visa - that did not permit him to engage in political activities. They labeled Moragas "a defiant enemy of the Cuban revolution" and criticized his plan to meet with the dissidents, whom the Cuban government considers to be U.S.-backed mercenaries. Spain's relationship with Cuba soured when former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar took office in May 1996. Days after taking power, Aznar announced Spain would take a hard line against the Cuban dictator.

     U.S. WORRIED ABOUT FREE SPEECH IN VENEZUELA 

    The United States said Monday it is worried about free speech in Venezuela, because of proposed legislation that could gag the media and curb rights groups. The criticism showed the United States is unwilling to ignore rights violations, despite overtures it has made to improve strained relations with President Hugo Chavez, U.S. officials said.

    Bills on controlling media and limiting non-governmental organizations' funds, and moves to prosecute some leading recall campaigners for treason, have heightened U.S. concerns that Chavez would abuse his new mandate, the officials said. "We have grave concerns about the content of the (laws) with respect to freedom of expression in Venezuela. We believe the proposal for this, if it becomes law, criminalizes defending human rights in Venezuela," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "This is part of our continuing concerns about the state of liberty of expression in Venezuela," Boucher added.

  PUTIN URGES AMERICAN VOTERS TO BACK PRESIDENT BUSH 

    Russian President Vladimir Putin says terrorist attacks in Iraq are aimed at preventing the re-election of U.S. President George W. Bush and that a Bush defeat "could lead to the spread of terrorism to other parts of the world." Putin, speaking Central Asian Cooperation Organization summit in Tajikistan Monday, made his most overt comments of support so far for the re-election of Bush for a second term.

    "Any unbiased observer understands that attacks of international terrorist organizations in Iraq, especially nowadays, are targeted not only and not so much against the international coalition as against President Bush," Putin said. "International terrorists have set as their goal inflicting the maximum damage to Bush, to prevent his election to a second term. If they succeed in doing that, they will celebrate a victory over America and over the entire anti-terror coalition," Putin said.

    "In that case, this would give an additional impulse to international terrorists and to their activities, and could lead to the spread of terrorism to other parts of the world." Putin noted that American voters will not decide the election just on Iraq. "Because of this we must take a realistic approach and be prepared for any development of events," he said. "We respect any choice the American people will make."

     PRESIDENT BUSH LEADS SENATOR KERRY BY EIGHT POINTS IN THE POLLS

    Not in a generation has a presidential election been so close for so long. Now, as President Bush is pulling a bit ahead of Sen. John Kerry, every step - and misstep - could affect their frenetic race to the finish. After three debates that drew tens of millions of viewers, the president leads Kerry 52%-44% among likely voters, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Thursday through Saturday. That's a significant shift from Kerry's 1-percentage-point lead a week earlier.

    Among the larger group of registered voters, Bush leads 49%-46%.  Since Kerry emerged as the likely Democratic nominee in March, USA TODAY has taken 20 national surveys. In 19 of them, neither candidate had a lead outside the margins of error. Just once, in mid-September, after Kerry had been pummeled at the Republican National Convention and his Vietnam record assailed by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Bush held a 14-point advantage.

    CUBAN SUGAR MILLS WILL GENERATE ELECTRICITY INSTEAD OF SUGAR

    Nine sugar mills are in full production even though the sugar harvest has not yet started; they are generating electricity to alleviate the energy crisis in the country, said Sugar Industry Minister Oscar Almazán, although he did not specify which sugar mills are involved. He did say that by the end of October, 16 mills will be added to the power grid.

    Sugar mills usually generate power when they are operating, a necessity since they tend to be the only sign of civilization for miles around. During operation, they generate electricity by burning the spent husk of the sugar cane. The mills producing electricity now are burning oil.

     CUBA EXPELS THREE EUROPEAN LEGISLATORS 

    Cuban authorities denied entry to Jorge Moragas, a conservative Spanish legislator, and two Dutch colleagues, Boris Dittrich and Kathleen Ferrier, hoping to meet with dissidents, Spain's Foreign Ministry said Saturday. Cuba's ambassador to Madrid, Isabel Allende, was summoned urgently to explain what the Spanish government considers an "unacceptable" expulsion, the ministry said in a statement. Cuba's Foreign Ministry called the Europeans "enemies" who were "at the service of the United States."

    Moragas of Spain's opposition Popular Party, traveling with two legislators from the Netherlands, was stopped upon arrival Friday night at Havana airport and denied access to Spanish diplomats, including Ambassador Carlos Alonzo Zaldivar. Spanish media reported that the three were kept at the airport for two hours and threatened with arrest if they did not board a plane to return to Madrid, which they did.

    The Cuban Foreign Ministry called Moragas "a defiant enemy of the Cuban revolution" and criticized his plan to meet with dissidents, whom Cuba considers mercenaries backed by the United States. "The activities publicly declared as the objectives of his trip constitute a flagrant violation of our sovereignty" and are considered a political provocation against Cuba, the ministry said in a statement released Saturday. The incident threatened to ignite a diplomatic spat just days after Spain's new Socialist government said it wanted to improve relations with Cuba and lead the European Union in changing its policies toward the communist-run island.

    "THE COCKTAIL WAR" 

    Spanish parliamentarian Jorge Moragas and two Dutch colleagues flew to Cuba on Friday to back dissidents opposed to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's rule. Spain's new Socialist government has been trying to restore dialogue with Havana and re-position the European Union as a counterbalance to Washington in the West's dealings with Cuba. The Spanish shift began after Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero defeated the pro-U.S. Popular Party in a March general election. But this initiative was poorly received by Cuban dissidents.

    Relations between the EU and Cuba have deteriorated fast amid what has been dubbed the "COCKTAIL WAR." European envoys to Cuba began inviting dissidents to their national day receptions in June 2003 in response to the jailing of 75 Castro opponents. On their side, Cuban officials have closed their doors to EU diplomats and seldom return calls. Zapatero tried to reverse the estrangement, and Spain only reluctantly invited the dissidents to Tuesday's reception. Dozens of pro-democracy dissidents and wives of political prisoners were there. Leading dissident Oswaldo Paya left early in disgust. Other dissidents also walked out of a Spanish embassy reception on Tuesday when ambassador Carlos Alonso Zaldivar regretted the absence of Cuban officials.

    That led Moragas, the Popular Party's foreign policy chief, to call for Zaldivar's resignation and announce he was flying to Cuba to meet Paya and Blanca Reyes, wife of journalist and poet Raul Rivero, who is serving a 20-year jail term. "This delegation had a clear goal, which was to lend support, solidarity and aid to those who are suffering under the repression of a dictator," Moragas told reporters in Madrid. But when they arrived at José Marti International Airport in Havana, the delegation was told to reboard their Air France flight and go straight back to Paris.

   POLL: MILITARY TRUSTS MORE BUSH THAN KERRY

    Despite Sen. John Kerry's attempts to woo the military vote, active-duty military personnel and their families remain solidly behind President Bush, according to a survey released Friday. Pollsters are legally barred from directly asking military personnel whom they plan to vote for. But when asked which candidate they would trust more as their commander in chief, survey participants chose Bush over Kerry by a greater than 2-to-1 ratio.

    Among the 655 active-duty personnel and their families polled, 69 percent said they had a favorable opinion of Bush. Only 29 percent said they felt the same way about Kerry. The University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center sponsored the survey. The disparity between Bush and Kerry isn't as great as that found in a Military Times' voluntary survey of more than 4,000 military personnel released this week. In it, Bush enjoyed a 55-point advantage, leading Kerry 73 percent to 18 percent.

    "Part of it has to do with (Kerry's) anti-Vietnam protests, which are as salient for the military as his record of combat valor," said Peter Feaver, a political scientist at Duke University in Durham, N.C., who studies politics in the military. Seventy percent of military personnel voted in 2000.

    RESERVISTS REFUSED TO CARRY OUT COMBAT MISSION IN IRAQ

    Nineteen reserve soldiers refused to deliver supplies in Iraq say they considered the mission too dangerous, in part because their vehicles were in poor shape. The Army is investigating the reservist members of a platoon that is part of the 343rd Quartermaster Company, based in Rock Hill, S.C. The unit delivers food, water and fuel on trucks in combat zones.

   On Wednesday, 19 members of the platoon did not show up for a scheduled 7 a.m. meeting in Tallil, in southeastern Iraq, to prepare for the fuel convoy's departure a few hours later, the military statement said. ''An initial report indicated that some of the 19 soldiers (not all) refused to participate in the convoy as directed,'' the statement said. The mission was ultimately carried out by other soldiers from the unit, which has at least 120 soldiers, the military said.

    A coalition spokesman in Baghdad said ''a small number of the soldiers involved chose to express their concerns in an inappropriate manner, causing a temporary breakdown in discipline.'' The coalition said in a statement Saturday that the troops are ''not being guarded or detained. They are being interviewed. They're taking statements.'' The supply route the soldiers were to have used, is among the most dangerous in Iraq. The military calls it ''Main Supply Route Tampa.''

HAVANA, October  17

    ANOTHER FARFETCHED FIDELIST ILLUSION ú ELECTRIC PLANT TO GENERATE POWER FROM WOOD SPLINTERS

    Authorities have announced that they will start construction early next year on a power plant that will generate electricity from wood splinters in the Isle of Youth, south of Havana province, according to a report published in the government daily Juventud Rebelde.

    The plant is projected to have a generating capacity of 3 to 5 megawatts, according to Rolando Padrón, of the Cuban Institute of Forestry Studies, and will be part of a study undertaken jointly with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. The plan calls for planting 3,000 hectares (7410 acres) to supply the plant, at the rate of 400 hectares (988 acres) per year.

    Cuba produced 2.52 million tonnes of raw sugar in 2003/2004, most of which was sold to Russia and China. The 2002/2003 sugar crop was the lowest in 70 years at 2.2 million tonnes after the Communist-run country shuttered 71 of 156 state mills and relegated 60 percent of sugar lands to other uses.

    CUBA POSTPONES FINAL SUGAR CROP ESTIMATES DUE DROUGHT

    Cuba's Sugar Ministry postponed September's final crop estimate through the end of October as drought continued in key sugar-producing provinces, industry sources said this week. The estimate is used to plan the harvest and exports. An initial estimate in August came in at less than two million tonnes of raw sugar, according to industry sources.

    However, "Cuban sugar traders have been told to expect no more than 1.5 million tonnes to sell," a Cuban economist said. "The drought worsened in September," the official daily Granma reported on Friday. "September precipitation was well below normal levels in the central and eastern regions." Granma reported key sugar-producing provinces such as Matanzas, Las Tunas, Villa Clara and Camaguey received 51 percent, 45 percent, 46 percent and 59 percent of normal rainfall, respectively, on heel of a year or more of exceptionally dry weather.

    PRESIDENT BUSH, SENATOR KERRY ON WAY TO KEY STATE OF FLORIDA

    After three contentious debates and millions of dollars spent on ads, the contest between President Bush and challenger John Kerry is essentially a dead heat -- paving the way for what both campaigns promise will be a ferocious 18-day chase to the end. And Florida promises to be key. Both campaigns turn Saturday from the Midwest and head straight to Florida and its coveted 27 electoral votes: Bush starts a three-city bus tour in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday. Kerry will appear in Fort Lauderdale Sunday before touring the swing-voter rich Interstate 4 corridor.

    The visits come as the campaigns shift their attention from debate strategy to turning out the vote in about a dozen states still up for grabs, including Florida, where post-hurricane polls suggest voters appear eager to pay attention to a race still too close to call. ''We're back where we started before the first hurricanes hit and now it's open season,'' said independent pollster Jim Kane, publisher of Florida Voter in Fort Lauderdale. ``Voters have shaken off the hurricanes and they're ready to listen.''

    Both campaigns claimed victory the day after Wednesday's debate, even as they tussled over remarks Kerry made about Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, who is gay. Kerry brought up Mary Cheney's name when asked by the moderator whether being gay is a choice. Campaigning in Florida ahead of his boss, Cheney lashed out at Kerry for interjecting his daughter into the debate, calling him a "man who will do and say anything to get elected.''

    CUBA ASKS U.N. TO EVALUATE PANAMA'S PARDON OF FOUR CUBAN EXILES 

    Cuba has asked the U.N. counter-terrorism committee to evaluate Panama's pardon of four Cuban exiles that the communist government accuses of trying to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. In a letter to the U.N. Security Council circulated Thursday, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said his government hopes that "such an effort might bring an end to impunity for these terrorists."

    Cuba broke diplomatic ties with Panama in August after President Mireya Moscoso issued the pardons, six days before she handed power to President Martin Torrijos. Three of the exiles are now in the United States and the fourth is believed to be in Honduras. The four were arrested in Panama during an Ibero-American summit in 2000 after Castro claimed he was being targeted for assassination. They were serving sentences for endangering public safety after being exonerated of possessing explosives.

    To some, especially the Cuban government, it is a clear case of international terrorism. But to the great majority, the four were freedom fighters trying to liberate their homeland. After the four were pardoned, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said it was a decision made by Panama. "We never lobbied the Panamanian government to pardon anyone involved in this case," he said. Moscoso said she wanted to prevent a future government from extraditing the four - Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jimenez, Guillermo Novo and Pedro Remon - when they finish their prison terms, saying she was certain they would be executed.

    CHAVEZ SUPPORTERS PULL DOWN STATUE OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

    Supporters of Hugo Chavez celebrated Columbus Day on Tuesday by toppling a statue in Caracas of the explorer whom Chavez blames for ushering in a "genocide" of native Indians. Police firing tear gas later recovered parts of the broken bronze image, which was dragged by the protesters to a theater where the Venezuelan leader was due to speak.

    Two years ago, Chavez re-christened the Oct. 12 holiday -- commemorated widely in the Americas to mark Christopher Columbus' 1492 landing in the New World -- "Indian Resistance Day." The new name honored Indians killed by Spanish and other foreign conquerors following in the wake of the Italian-born Columbus who sailed in the service of the Spanish crown.

    As the left-wing nationalist president led celebrations on Tuesday to honor Indian chiefs who resisted the Spanish conquest, a group of his supporters conducted a mock trial of a statue of Columbus in central Caracas. They declared the image guilty of "imperialist genocide," looped ropes around its outstretched arm and neck and heaved it down from its marble base. No police or other authorities intervened. Chavez has called Latin America's Spanish and Portuguese conquerors "worse than Hitler" and the precursors of modern-day "imperialism" he says is now embodied by the United States.

    CUBA FIRES BASIC INDUSTRY MINISTER OVER BLACKOUTS

    The Cuban government Thursday dismissed its most powerful minister, who is related to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, blaming him for an electricity crisis that has weakened the economy and caused long blackouts. Basic Industry Minister Marcos Portal was denounced for failing to warn the country's leadership of the energy shortage and "serious errors" in management of the key nickel exporting industry, the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma said. Portal is a member of the party's Political Bureau and sits on the Council of State. He was considered Cuba's most powerful minister, overseeing energy, oil, nickel, cement, pharmaceuticals and other industrial sectors.

    Cubans and Western diplomats were surprised at the sacking of Portal, who is married to one of Castro's nieces. A scathing statement against Portal on Granma's front page said he had become "too self-reliant" and ignored the advice of experienced colleagues, leading to costly mistakes. "Comrade Marcos Portal has recognized these errors," the statement said. Cuba has been hit by a paralyzing energy crisis due to the breakdown of the country's largest power plant in Matanzas and transmission problems that have reduced grid power supplies to half of the country's needs.

    Frequent blackouts have caused widespread discontent among Cubans who need electricity to refrigerate food and ventilate their homes in the tropical Caribbean heat. Portal was also charged with "erratic" management in the development of the nickel industry, Cuba's top export, half of which is produced in a joint venture with Sherritt International of Canada, the largest foreign investor in Cuba. Portal was replaced by Yadira Garcia, former party secretary for the province of Matanzas who was promoted to the Politburo for her role in the return of shipwrecked boy Elián Gonzalez from the United States in 2000.

    SENATOR DAYTON CLOSES CAPITOL OFFICE OVER TERRORISM FEAR

    Democratic senator Mark Dayton said Tuesday he has closed his Washington office because a top-secret intelligence report made him fear for his staff's safety. Federal law enforcement officials insisted there is no new intelligence indicating the Capitol complex is a target. Democratic Dayton said his office will be closed while Congress is in recess through Election Day, with his staff working out of his Minnesota office and in Senate space off Capitol Hill.

    "I take this step out of extreme, but necessary, precaution to protect the lives and safety of my Senate staff and my Minnesota constituents, who might otherwise be visiting my Senate office in the next three weeks," said Dayton, whose office in the Russell Senate Office Building is across the street from the Capitol.
 
    The surprising action taken by the freshman senator prompted ridicule. Colleagues on both sides of the aisle whispered "paranoid."  Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, Coleman called Dayton reckless and said he was concerned about "sending the message to terrorists that you're fleeing the city." Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) said Daytonçs decision was "ill informed."  Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), compared him to the boy who cried wolf.

   CUBA TIGHTENS CONTROL OVER TOURIST SPOTS

    Ernest Hemingway's favorite bars in Havana are under new management in a drive by Cuba's Communist government to increase control over its main cash cow, the tourist trade. The Tourism Ministry has directly taken over restaurants and other night-life spots, including Havana's famed Tropicana cabaret, that had been managed autonomously by state-run hotel groups, industry sources said Tuesday.

    The move is part of a massive shake-up of Cuba's tourism companies aimed at wiping out middle-management corruption and maximizing income from the $2 billion-a-year tourist trade for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's financially strapped government. "The Tourism Ministry is stripping hotel groups of their extra-hotel businesses and centralizing them under its own direction," said a Havana tourism official, who asked his name not be used.

    This follows centralization of retail stores and transport and car rental services, and the restructuring and merger of hotel groups begun in March. The changes are part of the government's move to reverse modest market-oriented reforms adopted after the collapse of the Soviet Union plunged Cuba into economic disarray more than a decade ago, forcing it to open up to tourism and foreign investment. Under the reorganization, to be completed by November before the peak tourism season begins, various companies, including the ministry's extra-hotel group Rumbos, will be merged.

    SPAIN SEEKS END TO EUROPEAN FREEZE WITH CUBA

    Spain's new envoy to Cuba criticized the European Union's policy toward the island on Tuesday and said Madrid would work to thaw relations with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's Communist government. But Ambassador Carlos Alonso Zaldivar indicated that Spain would not break with the EU's common position on Cuba, which is based on human rights concerns.

    "Unfortunately, the current situation of relations between Cuba and Spain, and between Cuba and the European Union, is profoundly unsatisfactory," Zaldivar said in a speech at a diplomatic reception celebrating Spain's national day. "We want to overcome the present situation, but we want to do that in agreement with the rest of the EU," he said. Zaldivar regretted the absence of Cuban government officials at the party, which was attended by dozens of pro-democracy dissidents and wives of political prisoners. The dissidents abandoned the residence disappointed by the ambassadorçs speech.

   Diplomats from other European nations said recent Spanish overtures to Cuba had been a diplomatic flop. "For two months they tried to convince the Cubans to be flexible and they have nothing to show for it," said a European ambassador in Havana. "They have not obtained the release of a single political prisoner. In fact, the Cuban government has set more conditions for unfreezing relations," the diplomat said.

    LIBYA AWARDS HUMAN RIGHTS PRIZE TO CHAVEZ

    Sunday Libya awarded its annual Muammar Gadhafi human rights prize to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez for resisting "imperialism" and being a champion of the poor. A citation accompanying the award, named after Libya's leader, Gadhafi, was read by a Libyan delegation attending a live television and radio show hosted by Chavez. It praised the Venezuelan leader's "brave heart, intelligent mind, eloquent oratory and firm hand".

    Populist Chavez, who has accused the U.S. government of trying to overthrow him, calls his left-wing government a revolution that tries to help the poor by providing them with free health and education programs. His opponents accuse him of ruling like a dictator, persecuting political enemies and trying to turn the world's No. 5 oil exporter into a replica of Communist Cuba.

    "I feel bathed in honor," Chavez replied, adding he hoped to visit Tripoli soon. Previous winners of the prize, which has been awarded each year since 1989, include Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and South Africa's President Nelson Mandela.

    CONGRESS OK ON DOUBLING AMERICAN TROOPS IN COLOMBIA

    The number of U.S. troops in Colombia will double to 800 under new legislation aimed at ratcheting up the fight against guerrillas and criminals financing themselves through drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion. The number of American civilian contractors paid out of U.S. funds also will rise to a maximum of 600 from the current limit of 400.

    The increases were approved as part of the fiscal year 2005 defense authorization bill passed by lawmakers in an unusual Saturday session. Some lawmakers have said they are worried that piece-by-piece increases in assistance there could draw the United States into a quagmire like Vietnam. The United States is funding a $3.3 billion (2.7 billion), five-year military aid package known as Plan Colombia, under which Colombian forces receive training, equipment and intelligence to root out drug traffickers and fumigate coca crops.

    Saturday's measure was aimed at supporting a unified campaign by the Colombian government "against narcotics trafficking and against activities by organizations designated as terrorists," the bill said, naming the groups Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the National Liberation Army, and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).  The legislation also orders the defense and state departments and the CIA to send an unclassified report to Congress in two months detailing any relationships between Colombian groups and foreign governments or groups that the United States as designated as terrorists.

    SOUTH AFRICA PARTY ASKS FOR INVESTIGATION INTO ARISTIDE 

    The minority African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) Tuesday called for an investigation into allegations that former Haiti President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is bankrolling violent activity in his home country. Party leader Kenneth Meshoe was responding to reports from Haiti accusing Aristide, who has been granted temporary sanctuary in South Africa, of financing the spate of violence plaguing Haiti's capital, Port Au Prince, the South African Press Association reported.

    "The interim Haitian president is alleging that the revolt in the capital, by Aristide supporters, is being bankrolled by ousted president, Aristide," the Christian party leader Kenneth Meshoe told the news agency. "If Mark Thatcher is being investigated on allegations that he'd bankrolled a failed coup plot in Equatorial Guinea, we at the ACDP say the same measure of action should be applied to Aristide, who's currently exiled in South Africa," Meshoe was quoted as saying.

    Meshoe called on "the necessary authorities" to investigate the allegations that Aristide was funding insurgents in Haiti. Aristide fled Haiti on Feb. 29 as rebels approached the Haitian capital. South Africa agreed to provide him temporary sanctuary upon the request of the 15-member Caribbean Community, and he arrived in the country on May 31.

    CHAIN OF TELEVISION STATIONS WILL AIR CHARGE THAT KERRY BETRAYED POWs 

    Sinclair Broadcast Group of Maryland, owner of the largest chain of television stations in the nation, plans to preempt regular programming two weeks before the Nov. 2 election to air a documentary that accuses Sen. John Kerry of betraying American prisoners during the Vietnam War. Sinclair has ordered its 62 stations to air Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal during prime-time hours next week. The Sinclair station group collectively reaches 24 percent of U.S. television households.

    Stolen Honor focuses on Kerry's antiwar testimony to Congress in 1971 and its effect on American POWs in Vietnam. Kerry testified that American forces routinely committed atrocities in Vietnam. The film, produced independently of Sinclair, includes interviews with former POWs who say their Vietnamese captors used Kerry's comments to undercut prisoner morale. Sinclair, based in the Baltimore suburb of Hunt Valley, Md., decided to air the film after it was rejected by the major broadcast networks, said Vice President Mark Hyman.

    ''This is a powerful story,'' Hyman said. "The networks are acting like holocaust deniers and pretending [the POWs] don't exist. It would be irresponsible to ignore them.'' Kerry campaign spokesman David Wade on Sunday called the film ''lies'' and ''a smear'' and characterized Sinclair as "another one of President Bush's powerful corporate friends trying to help him.'' Hyman said Sinclair has invited Kerry to appear on a discussion program after the broadcast, but Kerry's campaign has declined. The invitation to Kerry could help Sinclair satisfy federal requirements to provide ''equal time'' to candidates in an election.

    US TIGHTENS BAN ON CUBAN GOODS, INCLUDING CIGARS AND ALCOHOL BEVERAGES 

    US President George Bush's administration has tightened a ban on Americans importing Cuban cigars. "There is now an across-the-board ban on the importation of Cuban-origin cigars," said a notice released this week by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Previously, the rules allowed Americans licensed to travel to Cuba to bring back to the United States up to $100 worth of Cuban goods, including cigars and alcohol beverages. That loophole was closed in the latest regulations.

    The anti-Cuban cigar rules were already strict. For example, Americans are barred from buying a Cuban cigar in other countries, even to smoke it outside the United States  "The question is often asked whether United States citizens or permanent resident aliens of the United States may legally purchase Cuban goods, including tobacco or alcohol products, in a third country for personal use outside the United States," the notice said. "The answer is no."

    Breaking the rules can lead to criminal penalties, including fines of up to $1-million for corporations and $250 000 for individuals and up to 10 years in prison, the department said.

    JOHN KERRY PROMISES TO PRESSURE CASTRO 

    Senator John Kerry assailed President Bush's policies in the Middle East and the Western Hemisphere. He accused the administration of ignoring Latin America and Haiti and said that as president, he would work with U.S. allies to bring pressure on dictator Fidel Castro. ''Our ability to remove Castro is going to be by earning the respect of other nations to begin to get tough,'' Kerry said. "Every other country, the Germans, the French, others, have been buying property in Cuba, playing games. There's no concentrated focus on [Castro's] repressive anti-human rights behavior, and there should be. But because the U.S. has isolated itself, in a way, we've lost the legitimate pressure that ought to be brought on him," Kerry said in Miami yesterday.

    Democrats believe there is an emerging division in the once reliably Republican Cuban-American voting bloc, and Kerry on Sunday argued that Bush's restrictions will punish families while isolating dissidents on the island. ''It's counterproductive to the kind of exchange of information we need,'' Kerry said. "To shut it off is to empower Castro, and frankly I think that's a huge mistake.''

    However, several polls suggest that most Cuban Americans back increasingly restrictive policies against Cuba, and Republicans have assailed Kerry for once deriding the trade embargo against the island as a "function of Florida politics.'' Kerry looked to cast himself as staunchly anti-Castro, calling the Cuban leader a ''brutal dictator'' and noting that on a trip to Cuba, he declined to meet with Castro at "one of those one o'clock in the morning seances with Castro -- for him to sit around and play that game.''

    CHAVEZ SAYS OIL PRICE SHOULD BE 100 DOLLARS PER BARREL AND HIKES TAXES ON FOREIGN COMPANIES

    Hugo Chavez said Sunday that taxes on foreign companies extracting heavy crude from Venezuelan soil would be raised to 16.6 percent from less than 1 percent. In the mid 1990's, foreign companies were charged a smaller tax than those extracting light crude, as an incentive for foreign companies to develop the tar belt, which had only begun to be developed by the state oil company.    

    The tax raise will affect only companies working on the tar belt, but not those which extract other fuels like natural gas, or those that own gas stations around the country. Also Sunday, Chavez said that this week's high oil prices were still far below what the fair price should be: $100 per barrel. "If the price (of oil) in 1974 was projected until today ... the oil barrel should be at $100 today," Chavez said.

   Light crude reached $53 a barrel this week on the New York Mercantile Exchange partly due to an oil strike in Nigeria and because output in the Gulf of Mexico has not recovered as expected after recent hurricanes. Venezuela's barrel closed at $42.17 Friday, setting the 2004 average price at $32.83. The average price in 2003 was $25.76. Venezuela, the world's fifth oil exporter, says it produces more than 3 million barrels of oil a day. Critics say it is closer to 2.5 million.

    SIX CUBAN BASEBALL PLAYERS SURVIVE DANGEROUS SEA VOYAGE TO MIAMI

    Five veterans of Cuba's national series and a member of the country's national junior program are in Miami after the largest mass desertion of baseball players since Fidel Castro's revolution. The six players, all reportedly under the age of 24, arrived in the Keys a week ago after spending two days at sea. Yunel Escobar Almenares, Yamel Guevara, Jose Angel Cordero Valdez, Rafael Galbizo Figueroa, Joel Perez Mendieta and Yoan Limonta Zayas ran this time not to reach a base but freedom.

    The defection of a half-dozen players, coming in the wake of the recent desertions of standout pitchers Maels Rodriguez, Alay Soler and Jose Contreras and first baseman/outfielder Kendry Morales, is a crippling blow to the island's baseball league, which its new season next month After being released by immigration officials, the players told a harrowing story about the state of baseball in Cuba.

    Because of the island's deep economic crisis, the players said there is a shortage of gloves and bats and the baseballs used in Cuban league play are of inferior quality. Cordero told El Nuevo Herald that many players are using homemade bats, and one of them said he has seen players nail broken bats together to keep playing. ''If it wasn't for our natural talent, Cuban baseball would have disappeared a while ago,'' a player said.

    U.S. CONCERNED ABOUT CUBAN INVOLVEMENT IN VENEZUELA, COLOMBIA

    The State Department is accusing Cuba of training Colombian rebels and says it is troubled by a large presence of Cuban personnel in Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chavez, is a close ally of Cuban President Fidel Castro. The department's view was outlined in response to a press question Friday about Secretary of State Colin Powell's comments in an agency interview that Castro is "causing his own people to suffer greatly" and has become a troublemaker in the neighboring South American countries.

    Elaborating Friday night on Powell's remarks, a State Department official said in an authorized comment that the United States continues to be concerned by Cuba's support for terrorist organizations in Colombia. It said the two largest leftist guerrilla organizations there, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, continue to maintain a presence and receive training in Cuba. Both are on the State Department's list of international terrorist organizations.

    The official, who could not be identified under State Department ground rules, said in the written response that the United States worries that the large Cuban presence in Venezuela might harm Venezuela's democratic system. In an attempt to bolster the Chavez's Venezuelan government, Cuba has dispatched thousands of health care workers, teachers and sports trainers to poor neighborhoods in the country.

    COLIN POWELL CORRECTS HIS STATEMENT AND NOW SAYS THAT CASTRO IS STILL A TROUBLEMAKER

    Seeking to contain a minor political storm over his recent remarks on Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that Castro has ''never stopped being a troublemaker'' in Latin America and that the region will be better off when he's gone. Powell spoke in an interview with Knight Ridder a day after Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry seized on earlier remarks in which Powell suggested that Castro was a problem for Cubans, but not for the rest of the Western Hemisphere.

   In the interview, Powell suggested his remarks had been twisted. He said his point was that Cuba doesn't present the same sort of regional threat it did when Castro had the military and political backing of the Soviet Union. ''Fidel Castro is an anachronism. He is causing his own people to suffer greatly. He is a troublemaker in the rest of the region. He is a troublemaker in Venezuela. He's a troublemaker in Colombia. He's never stopped being a troublemaker. But he is not the kind of threat he was when he had the Soviet Union backing him,'' the Secretary said.

    SENATOR KERRY'S DISCHARGE FROM NAVAL SERVICE 

    Someone has noticed that Senator John Kerry's honorable discharge was dated March 12, 2001 even though his service obligation should have ended July 1, 1972. At first, you could say: "So?" But think about it. It raises some interesting questions. Unlike McCain, Bush, and Gore, Kerry has adamantly refused to authorize the review of his military records. Most think it's because of his phony battle medals. However, it's possible the real reason is another. He was not granted an Honorable Discharge until almost 30 years after his ostensible service term had ended. This is very much out of the ordinary, and highly suspect.

    There are five classes of Discharge: Honorable, General, Other Than Honorable, Bad Conduct, and Dishonorable. What kind did the Senator receive? One guess might be that he was discharged in the '70s, but not with an Honorable discharge. He appealed this sometime during the Clinton administration. Political pressure was applied, and the Honorable Discharge was then granted. His file is probably rife with reports of this, submissions and  hearings on the appeal, reports of his "giving aid and comfort" to the enemy, along with protests that were filed with respect to his alleged valor under fire.

    On Jan. 3, 1970, the then Lt. John Kerry was transferred to the Naval Reserve Manpower Center in Bainridge, Maryland. Where are Kerry's Performance Records for 2 years of obligated Ready Reserve, the 48 drills per year required and his 17 days of active duty per year training while Kerry was in the Ready Reserves? Have these records been released? Has anyone ever talked to Kerry's Commanding Officer at the Naval Reserve Center where Kerry drilled? On 1 July 1972 Lt. John Kerry was transferred to Standby Reserve - Inactive. On 16 February 1978 Lt. John Kerry was finally discharged from US Naval Reserve.

    UNHAPPY CUBANS PAINT ANTI-GOVERNMENT SLOGANS AND BREAK GLASS WINDOWS 

    On the night of September 27, as the Cuban government faithful celebrated the anniversary of the creation of the neighborhood watchdog Committees for the Defense of the Revolution 44 years ago, an unknown and probably unknowable number of discontents, under cover of one of the frequent blackouts, made a mockery of the concept by painting anti-government slogans on walls and breaking glass on government storefronts. One graffiti read: "FIDEL, LEAVE BUSH ALONE AND LET THERE BE LIGHT."

    Cubans have been living under chronic blackouts for months now, and, according to government pronouncements, there is no end in sight, as repairs to the national electrical grid are undertaken. Persons unknown broke the glass windows on the La Oriental and La Esmeralda stores, and on the butcher shop on 60 Avenue.  

    IRAN HAS IMPROVED ITS MISSILE CAPABILITIES
 
    Iran said on Wednesday it would keep improving its missile capability after announcing that the latest version of its medium-range Shahab-3 could now hit targets up to 2,000 km (1,250 miles) away. The Islamic Republic's growing missile range, which now stretches to parts of southeastern Europe.  Iranian officials have frequently boasted in recent weeks that they can strike anywhere in Israel or at U.S. bases in the Gulf should either country attack Iran's nuclear facilities. But analysts say Iran's bid to boost the range of its missiles beyond the immediate region does not mean Tehran has European capitals or eventually the United States in its sights.

    Iran's missiles now had a range of 2,000 km, up from previous estimates for the Shahab-3's range of around 1,300 km. Israel has long accused Iran of working on a long-range missile, the Shahab-4, which would be able to reach Europe. Iran denies any plans to build a Shahab-4 missile. "In the Shahab project we have just achieved Shahab-3," an spokesman said. Tehran says its missiles are for defensive purposes and would be used to counter a possible Israeli or U.S. strike against its nuclear facilities.

   IRAN DEFIES INTERNATIONAL DEMANDS ON NUCLEAR PROGRAM 

    Iran said it has processed several tons of raw "yellowcake'' uranium to prepare it for enrichment - a key step in developing atomic weapons - in defiance of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency. Converting raw uranium into hexafluoride gas does not violate any agreements Iran has made regarding its nuclear program and was done with the full knowledge of the International Atomic Energy Agency. However, it draws Iran and the United States - which quickly voiced its disapproval - closer to a showdown before the U.N. Security Council.

    The IAEA board of governors specifically demanded last month that Iran stop all enrichment-related activities, and cited the plans to convert raw uranium into hexafluoride gas as particularly alarming. Hossein Mousavian, Irançs chief delegate to the IAEA, would not specify hoy much uranium hexafluoride has been made. Iran has refused to back down, and its parliament is studying a bill that would require the government to proceed with the enrichment process over any objections.

    SOUTHERN COMMAND COMMANDER EXCLUDED VENEZUELA FROM LIST OF COLOMBIAN ALLIES

    Venezuela was excluded by a U.S. high-ranking military officer from a list of countries supporting the war in Colombia against rebels groups that found themselves through drug trafficking, reported Reuters.

    "The war waged in Colombia is not a war only for Colombia, but for all of its neighbors and the rest of the world.  I think it must be a combat, a fight where every regional neighbor is involved," said James Hill, Commander of the US Southern Command. "I believe there is a growing support for this in countries such as Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, and Panama, and I hope some day Venezuela, too," added the officer in a press conference.

    KERRY BLASTS COLIN POWELL OVER CASTRO REMARKS

    Sen. John Kerry on Wednesday pounced on remarks made by Secretary of State Colin Powell that suggested Fidel Castro is a problem for Cuba, not "the rest of the hemisphere.'' Powell's remarks came as he traveled to Brazil this week, and was asked by a reporter about criticism from Latin American leaders who accuse the United States of "seeing their problems through the lens of Cuba.''

    ''We don't see everything through the lens of Fidel Castro,'' Powell replied. "Fidel Castro is a problem for the Cuban people. I don't view him as that much of a problem for the rest of the hemisphere. Certainly not the way he was when I was national security advisor -- 15 years ago . . .''

    Kerry, whose campaign hopes to siphon even a sliver of the reliably Republican voting bloc from President Bush, rapidly assailed the remarks, calling it "shocking that the Bush administration is telling the world that Fidel Castro no longer poses a problem for this hemisphere. ''Fidel Castro is a tyrant who brutally oppresses the Cuban people,'' Kerry said in a statement. "Castro's Cuba is the last bastion of communism in our region and a major obstacle to the triumph of democracy in this hemisphere.''

    CHAVEZ GOVERNMENT CONGRATULATES POWELL FOR HIS  REMARKS

    The United States said Monday it will seek better ties with oil-rich Venezuela in the clearest sign since President Hugo Chavez won a recall referendum in August that Washington is looking for reconciliation with the firebrand populist. Chavez has irritated Washington with his insults to President Bush, hawkish oil price policies and anti-free trade positions, and his friendship with Cuba's President Fidel Castro, a longtime U.S. enemy.

    "We are looking forward to improving relations with Venezuela," Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters en route to Brazil. "We now have the referendum that's over and behind us and we should find ways to cooperate." The oil business and the fight against drug trafficking are the two areas where the countries can probably work most closely, according to U.S. and Venezuelan officials.

    Powell's move contrasted with the United States' cool acceptance of Chavez' clear referendum victory and its decision last month to cut aid to Venezuela for what it said was its failure to crack down on trafficking in humans. It also came despite some questioning in the Bush administration over whether Chavez wants reconciliation or prefers a confrontational style that they say has undermined the countries' traditionally close ties.

    WIFE OF JAILED DISSIDENT TAKE PROTEST TO REVOLUTION SQUARE

    A group of wives of jailed Cuban dissidents camped out overnight along Havana's Revolution Square, and vowed Wednesday to stay until their demands were met that the husband of one woman be moved to a hospital. The unprecedented protest by six women in a park on the edge of the symbolic rallying point of Cuba's communist-run government continued under the watchful gaze of Cuban police, who did not intervene.

    "I'm staying put until they bring me my husband and allow me to take him to hospital, or they arrest me," said Berta Soler, wife of jailed human rights activist Angel Moya. Moya was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year when President Fidel Castro ordered a crackdown on dissent that led to the jailing of 75 dissidents. Soler said her husband was suffering excruciating back pain from a herniated disc and needed an operation.

    The protest began Tuesday when Soler, accompanied by other wives of jailed dissidents dressed in white, submitted a letter to Castro at the Communist Party headquarters overlooking the square. The square is the political center of Cuba, the site of mass rallies held by Castro after his revolution triumphed in 1959. It is watched over by a steel silhouette of legendary guerrilla fighter Che Guevara on the facade of the Interior Ministry. "If Fidel is the only one who decides the fate of the prisoners, I am here to ask him to allow my husband's transfer," Soler said. "We call on the democratic countries of the European Union to speak to Castro and demand the release of the 75, because they are innocent," said Dolia Leal, wife of jailed dissident Nestor Aguiar.

    CUBA VISAS TO U.S. ON THE RISE

   The U.S. government allowed several hundred more Cubans to migrate to America over the past year that during the year previous, according to figures released Friday. The American mission in Cuba said it had granted 23,000 immigrant visas for Cubans during the U.S. fiscal year that just ended - 2,000 more than last year and 3,000 more than required by migration accords.

    Under migration agreements signed in the mid-1990s, the United States must provide at least 20,000 visas to Cubans annually, and Cuba must discourage its citizens from making risky attempts to immigrate illegally to the United States. The accords are aimed at encouraging safe, legal and orderly migration from Cuba to the United States.

    Nevertheless, hundreds still leave communist Cuba each year on smugglers' fast boats, or homemade rafts made with floating inner tubes, heading toward an uncertain fate in hopes of illegally reaching the United States. The U.S. statement also called on the Cuban government to grant exit permits to more than 1,600 Cubans it says have been granted American immigration visas but denied permission by their own country to leave. Many of those Cubans are doctors or other professionals who the Cuban government considers too important to the functioning of society to allow them to immigrate in large numbers.

     BIN LADEN DEPUTY URGES MUSLIM YOUTHS TO ATTACK THE UNITED STATES

    A new audiotape purportedly from al-Qaida's second-in-command urges Muslim youths to attack the United States. The tape, aired Friday on Al-Jazeera television, is purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahri, an Egyptian-born confidante of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.  "You, youth of Islam, this is our message,'' the speaker said. "If we die or are detained, continue the path after us, and don't betray God and his prophet, and don't knowingly betray the trust.''

    "The youth must not wait for anyone and must begin resisting from now - and take experience and lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan and Chechnya,'' the speaker said. "The interests of the Americans, British, Australians, French, Polish, Norwegians, South Koreans and Japanese are spread everywhere,'' the speaker said. "We must not wait more ... or we will be devoured one country after the other.''

    The tape said the countries cited had taken part in occupying Afghanistan or Iraq or Chechnya and had given Israel "means of survival.'' An Al-Jazeera producer said the tape was "supposedly received today,'' by the usual means, which he refused to discuss. The station broadcast almost four minutes in two clips of a longer recording, and, as usual, was not planning to air the full tape.

    COLOMBIA QUESTIONS VENEZUELA INTEREST IN BUYING FIGHTER JETS

    Colombian President Alvaro Uribe isn't sure why his colleague in neighboring Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, would be interested in buying Russian MiG combat aircraft. In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday he said: "I want not to express any suspicion". "I respect the right of self determination. I respect pacific (peaceful) co- existence of brother and neighboring countries." But, he added, "it's very important to ask this question of President Chavez."

    A week ago, Chavez said his government would spend $40 million on Russian military helicopters. He made the announcement while visiting the border with Colombia, where unidentified gunmen killed five Venezuelan soldiers and an oil engineer earlier this month. In an editorial column Friday, the Wall Street Journal cited recent UPI and Russian news service reports on Venezuela's plans to spend about $5 billion on the fighter planes, associated  military equipment and armament.

    Chavez has been accused of tacitly supporting left-wing Colombian guerillas, accusations he denies. But he also has refused to condemn Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which the Colombian government, the U.S. and the European Union brand a terrorist organization. He has said Venezuela is "neutral" with respect to Colombia's internal conflict. But Chavez has denounced Plan Colombia, a Bogota-designed program meant to counter the guerillas and bolster Colombia's military institutional framework. Washington has supported the program with more than $2 billion, including military aid.

    CUBA CLOSES 118 FACTORIES DUES TO ENERGY CRISIS

    Cuba said Wednesday it would close more than 118 factories as part of measures to cope with an energy crisis that has caused daily blackouts of up to 12 hours, wreaking havoc on personal lives and the economy. "Steel, cement, paper, juice and other plants totaling 118 in all will be shut at least for October," Vice President Carlos Lage said in a television broadcast, the third in as many days on the crisis.

    Cuban dictator Fidel Castro said this week the problem was a lack of generating capacity, not high oil prices. He suggested measures be taken to regulate residential consumers and especially small private businesses with high demand. "The socialist state is subsidizing this electricity which costs them 10 percent of what it costs us to produce," he said.

    The outages began after Cuba's largest power plant, near the city of Matanzas, broke down in May, depriving the country of 330 megawatts, 15 percent of its power needs. It is still out of commission and blackouts have become worse as other plants have been closed for maintenance. The grid is now operating at 50 percent capacity. "We all are to blame ... we have a weak system," Castro said, promising to invest in new capacity. He said supply problems could persist for five months or more.

    U.S. DENIES VISAS TO 64 CUBANS SEEKING TO ATTEND A CONFERENCE IN LAS VEGAS

    Cuban scholars charged Wednesday that the U.S. government denied visas to more than 60 Cubans seeking to attend conference on Latin America in the United States. Milagro Martinez, a political scientist who was to attend the Latin American Studies Association congress in Las Vegas on October 7-9, said the American mission in Havana announced this week that she and more than 60 other Cuban academics were denied U.S. visas.

    The reason for the denial was not immediately clear. Officials at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana declined to comment Wednesday afternoon and referred calls to the U.S. State Department in Washington, which did not immediately issue a statement on the matter.

    The Latin American Studies Association, known as LASA, is the world's largest professional association bringing together people and institutions studying the region from all disciplines. The group's international congress, held every 18 months, is the world's leading forum for academic discussion on Latin America and the Caribbean.  

    VENEZUELA AND IRAN STRENGTHENING THEIR COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL RELATIONSHIP

    Iran is interested in crude and natural gas exploration in Venezuela, the vice president of Venezuela's state oil company said Wednesday. Following a meeting with Iranian Deputy Commerce Minister Medhi Navab, Felix Rodriguez, said Iran has inquired about upcoming licensing rounds for energy projects in this oil-rich South American nation.

    "We touched on some topics, among those exploration and production activities," Rodriguez told the state-run Venpres news agency. Since taking office in 1999, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged fellow members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, to improve cooperation with more joint investment projects.

    Rodriguez said his meeting with Navab "forms part of a wider integration of nations that belong to OPEC." Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, has announced plans to grant licenses for development by foreign companies in the Orinoco area, where Venezuela has an estimated 30.7 billion barrels of crude oil reserves.