CUBA'S LIBERATION IS ON THE WAY -- THE FAR AND CAMCO, WORKING TOGETHER, WILL ASSIST

FIDEL CASTRO IS BACK IN CHARGE

* Efforts to engage Cuba stall
C. M. GUERRERO
* Castros equal-opportunity oppressors
ASSOCIATED PRESSJOSE CARDONA
* Cuba blasts US leaders for meeting with dissidents
PAUL HAVEN
* Keeping Venezuela in the dark
ALINA REVUELTA FERNANDEZ
* Ex Cuban dictator Fidel Castro: More than 1,000 Cuban-educated MDS to help...
EFE
* We send doctors, not soldiers revolution in the making
fidel castro
* Former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro: Protect Morales from "the empire"
ASSOCIATED PRESS

HAVANA, CUBA
{03-09-2010}

FIDEL CASTRO IS BACK IN CHARGE
ASSOCIATED PRESS

AFTER HIS CONVALESCENCE, THE AILING DICTATOR REIMPOSED HIS AUTHORITY—quashing hopes of internal reform and détente with the United States.

When Raúl Castro became president of Cuba in 2006, he raised hopes, at home and abroad, that he would usher in a new era of reform. His brother, El Comandante Fidel, was struck with some sort of intestinal illness and rendered incapable of governing. So in stepped Raúl with promises to undertake "structural" change in the country. He distributed parcels of idle land to farmers. He encouraged young people, many of whom feel restive about their country's system, to "fearlessly debate" the country's problems. He decreed that Cubans could finally buy cell phones and computers, and could stay at tourist hotels that had previously been off-limits to them. When it came to relations with the United States, he said last April, "We are prepared to discuss everything—human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners—everything, everything, everything."

But over the past year, some prominent Cuba analysts say, Fidel has steadily reasserted his authority and applied the brakes to these efforts. Despite his convalescence far from public view, Fidel is once again the arbiter on all critical matters facing the state, says Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst and now a senior research associate at the University of Miami. "I think Fidel decided that Raúl was going too far, that Raúl was playing with fire," he says. As evidence, Latell points to recent shuffling of the leadership ranks that he considers an affront to Raúl and to Fidel's backsliding commentary in more than 100 "Reflections" he has published in the Cuban press during the past year. Any hope of warmer relations with the U.S. has been dashed, says Latell. "I don't see any progress possible in the foreseeable future.”

It seemed at first like Fidel had relinquished control when his intestinal disease laid him up  three and a half years ago. "He was gravely ill" between the summer of 2006 and the spring of 2007, says Andy Gomez of the University of Miami. He stopped showing up in public, stopped running government meetings, and appeared to yield the reins to Raúl. Yet in the past year, "there's no question that Fidel's condition has improved," says Gomez. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reported that Fidel was "exceptionally well" after visiting him in Havana last month. Since Fidel's condition remains a state secret, analysts can only read tea leaves. But other indicators suggest he is back, and he's not pleased.

On the domestic front, Cuba observers say, Fidel has blocked the fundamental economic reforms necessary to lift the country out of its worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. "It's pretty clear that Raúl Castro is much more open to economic liberalization than Fidel Castro," says Philip Peters, a Cuba specialist at the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. As Latell describes in his book After Fidel,Raúl pushed for market reforms in the 1990s and was impressed with the Chinese economic model. Now that he is ostensibly in power, though, he has been unable to deliver the same changes—more opportunities for private enterprise, an elimination of the dual-currency system (which involves regular pesos for routine purchases and dollar-pegged "convertible pesos" for imported goods)—that he is thought to want for his country and that many Cubans had hoped for. The regime's recent crackdown on dissidents, activists, and bloggers also bears Fidel's fingerprints, says Latell. After Raúl's very public commitments to reform, it's unlikely he would willingly retreat so much back to the vision Fidel was known to hold.

Fidel has also ensured that tensions with the U.S. remain high. Only days after Raúl asserted that "everything" was on the negotiating table, Fidel wrote in a "Reflection" that his brother had been "misinterpreted." He then offered this clarification: "When the President of Cuba said he was ready to discuss any topic with the U.S. president, he meant he was not afraid of addressing any issue. That shows his courage and confidence in the principles of the Revolution." (This was widely interpreted, including in Foggy Bottom, as a reprimand.) Then in December, the Cuban government arrested an American contractor, Alan Gross, who was delivering communications equipment to Jewish groups on the island. He's being held without charges—an act that seems designed to provoke the United States. "We have seen this MO many times," says Carlos Saladrigas, co-chairman of the Cuba Study Group, which advocates greater American engagement with the island. "The U.S.A. softens, Cuba hardens. It seems to be a repeat of Fidel's playbook." Fidel unleashed the Mariel boatlift just as Jimmy Carter was trying to engage Cuba, and he shot down unarmed airplanes belonging to an anti-Castro group in Miami just as Bill Clinton was trying the same.

Fidel—who relinquished his titles as head of the Council of State and Council of Ministers, but remains leader of the Communist Party—still has taken no additional government post since his return fitness. But he has made leadership changes that some analysts suspect are aimed at preserving his vision of the revolution. Key among them is the promotion of Ramiro Valdés, a former Interior minister regarded as a diehard Fidel loyalist and a brutal enforcer. Despite a history of strained relations with Raúl, Valdés is now effectively the No. 3 man in the regime after the Castro brothers. "That was a Fidel appointment," says Gomez. Valdés "is Fidel's eyes and ears on a daily basis within the inner circle."

The Comandante won't be around forever, of course. However improved his health, it can't be that great, considering his continued seclusion. But as long as Fidel is calling the shots, the Cuban economy will remain unproductive, the youth will remain restive, and relations with the U.S. will remain at an impasse. "Nothing is going to happen while Fidel is alive," says Gomez. Which leaves everyone, on and off the island, pretty much where they were three and a half years ago: waiting for Fidel to die.

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HAVANA, CUBA
{03-06-2010}

EFFORTS TO ENGAGE CUBA STALL
C.M GUERRERO

THE DEATH OF A CUBAN POLITICAL PRISONER AND THE PROLONGED JAILING OF A U.S. CITIZEN IN HAVANA appear to have cast a dark cloud over U.S. and Spanish government efforts to engage Raúl Castro's government.

“We still believe engagement is the right way, but the death of Orlando Zapata was a punch to the gut,'' said an aide to a U.S. Democratic congressman who favors easing sanctions on Cuba.

“There's no doubt this incident will put a very important, if not formidable, obstacle'' in the way of Spain's efforts, said Joaquin Roy, a University of Miami expert on European Union issues.

The U.S. and Spanish efforts were not faring well even before the Dec. 3 arrest of U.S. government contractor Alan P. Gross and the Feb. 23 death of Zapata, who starved himself to death to protest prison conditions.

Castro had made no significant counter-gestures after President Barack Obama lifted or eased several sanctions on Cuba last year. A bill before Congress allowing unrestricted travel to Cuba appeared to have stalled, and was recently reworked as part of an agriculture bill.

At the EU, former communist-ruled nations were opposing the campaign by Spain's socialist government to persuade the regional body to abandon its Common Position on Cuba, which essentially conditions EU relations on Cuba's human rights record.

But the Zapata and Gross cases undermined the argument that since the Cuban government has made no concessions, the United States and EU should take unilateral steps to engage with the Cuban people, said sanctions supporters. They also raised the question of whether Cuba was intentionally trying to torpedo the U.S. and EU efforts at rapprochement.

“There's proof that each time we try to promote an increased free flow of people and information, the Castro regime digs in,'' the EFE news agency quoted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as telling Congress last week.

“The Cuban government has been using the issue of the Common Position to justify, or invent, that there's an aggressive attitude toward Cuba by the EU and Spain,'' said the Spanish-born Roy. ``It's the same logic as the U.S. embargo. I have never believed that Cuba truly wants the embargo to end.''

In the U.S. Congress, Cuba's detention of Gross since Dec. 3 -- without charges -- for delivering satellite communications equipment to Jewish groups has dealt a blow to the efforts to ease sanctions on Cuba, several knowledgeable aides said.

“The tipping point on Cuba is the Gross issue. It's a hot potato,'' said a senior staffer to a senator who favors lifting travel restrictions.

“As bad as the Zapata case is, the Gross issue is the one that has a greater reach here.''

Even Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who opposes the U.S. ban on tourist travel to Cuba, blasted Cuba's handling of the Zapata case, saying it “should have intervened earlier to prevent this tragedy. His death is on their conscience.''

“First Gross and now this. The timing could not be worse,'' said a top aide to a House Democrat who favors lifting all sanctions on Cuba.

The congressional staffers and aides all requested anonymity because they were not authorized to make public comments on the issue.

Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of the pro-embargo U.S. Cuba Democracy political action committee, said the Zapata case will ``make it very difficult for those who want to engage unconditionally with the Cuban regime.''

While many Americans supported Obama's campaign pledge to reach out to Iran, he added, they were outraged when the Tehran government cracked down violently on massive street protests following allegedly fraudulent elections last year.

“Americans will always support the underdog,'' Claver-Carone said. ``And what Zapata did, in a very tragic way, was to put it in their faces that there's an underdog in Cuba. . . . More and more the message today is that there is an opposition in Cuba that is viable . . . and that is a huge impact.''

Supporters of easing U.S. sanctions on Cuba say they nevertheless will continue to push for a closer engagement.

After attacking Cuba's handling of the Zapata case, McGovern added: ``I have always felt -- and continue to believe -- that if we are truly going to do a better job of standing with the Cuban people, then we need to be closer to them and in greater numbers.''

Zapata's death   “was a horrible and terrible turn of events, and further proof that we need to try another approach to Cuba,'' said Sarah Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, a Washington group that favors travel to Cuba.

“Rather than standing just symbolically with Cubans at a distance, as those who embrace the Cuba embargo and all of its facets continue to ask us to do, the better, more courageous, and ultimately more effective course is to stand with them literally, in person, in their country, and to put food produced here in America on their kitchen tables across Cuba,'' she wrote on the Center's website.

In the European Union, said Roy, “there's going to be strong pressures'' on Spain's socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, to abandon his campaign to persuade the EU to ease its Common Position.

A meeting in Madrid Friday of foreign policy officials from all EU member-nations ended with a declaration condemning Cuba for the death of Zapata. And an editorial last week in Spain's left-of-center El Períodico newspaper recommended Zapatero “should give up this effort to change the Common Position.''

Roy noted that Zapatero, like Obama, also faces domestic problems that may lead him to put the Common Position issue on his back burner.

“It would not surprise me if everything fell apart and [the Common Policy] remains as it is,'' he said, “unless the Cuban government releases 50 dissidents, which I don't expect.''

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MIAMI, FLORIDA
{02-28-2010}

CASTROS EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY OPPRESSORS
JOE CARDONA

WHEN IT COMES TO THE CASTRO BROTHERS' REIGN IN CUBA, history sadly and criminally repeats itself and the world sits idly by.

Last week, 42-year-old imprisoned Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo took his last breath. Zapata had sustained an 80-plus days hunger strike protesting the constant beatings he and other prisoners were receiving from the soulless guards at the Kilo 7 prison in Camaguey.

The Cuban revolution was supposed to have fought for people like Zapata, a poor, black Cuban from the countryside for whom Fidel Castro pledged his sensibilities and his struggle.

The irony, of course, is that Cuba's black population has borne the brunt of the Castro brothers' iron-fisted, intransigent rule. Tragically, this has occurred mostly under the complicit silence and with the tacit support of many African-American political leaders.

Along with Zapata, many of Cuba's most prominent opposition leaders are black. This fact challenges the long-held Castro propaganda that presents dissenters as disgruntled rich, white, landowning Batistianos (supporters of previous dictator Fulgencio Batista -- interestingly enough, of mixed race himself).

Upon quickly reflecting on this propaganda one has to immediately question how old (if they are still living) must former land-owning Bastistianos be?

I'm appalled that 51 years into this disastrous mess someone would still buy into the ludicrous premise that the opposition within Cuba is nothing but a disenfranchised, geriatric band of Batista acolytes. That silly notion is defied by Afro-Cuban opposition leaders like Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez (Antunez) and the now deceased Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

In fact, the Cuban opposition is now a rainbow coalition of sorts, as women such as former political prisoner Martha Beatriz Roque and blogger Yoani Sánchez have become prominent figures in the movement.

Last year, several members of the Black Congressional Congress visited Havana and met with both Castros. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., came away enchanted with Fidel. ``It was like listening to an old friend,'' Rush cooed.

I am going to assume that Rush didn't bother to learn about dissenters who oppose his ``old friend'' -- including Afro-Cuban Eusebio Peñalver, who died in 2006. He spent nearly 29 of his 70 years of life in prison (longer than South Africa's Nelson Mandela) combating the Castros' dictatorship.

Of the caucus' encounter with new dictator Raúl Castro, Congresswoman Barbara Lee claimed that she was ``convinced that Raúl wanted normal relations with the United States.''

Antunez's response, after hearing about Lee's statement, focused on the truth: ``When one is fighting for liberty and human rights within a totalitarian society like the one that exists in Cuba, it is hurtful and offensive that citizens from a free society who have access to uncensored information visit our island and lack the courage to inquire about the unjustly imprisoned political prisoners.''

The African-American community's misguided support of the Castros stems from Fidel's calculated, symbolic rhetoric and appearances during the 1960s and '70s when he cast himself as the leader of the less fortunate, aided and abetted by New York public relations firms.

Fidel's New York visit in 1960 created quite a stir as he refused to stay at a fancy uptown hotel and went to Harlem where he met with prominent black leaders like Malcolm X and Langston Hughes. On that same visit Castro's speeches turned more vitriolic toward the capitalist establishment, though he had not yet declared himself a communist.

The precept of ``my enemy's enemy is my friend'' took hold in the African-American community, and the rest is a sad tale of support for one of the world's most tyrannical dictators. I'm curious to see if the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Alice Walker or Spike Lee will take note of Orlando Zapata Tamayo's death, a common citizen who dared to speak out against oppression and paid the highest price.

Joe Cardona is an independent filmmaker in Miami.

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HAVANA, CUBA
{02-21-2010}

CUBA BLASTS US LEADERS FOR MEETING WITH DISSIDENTS
PAUL HAVEN  //   ASSOCIATED PRESS

CUBA SCOLDED A TOP U.S. DELEGATION SATURDAY FOR MEETING WITH POLITICAL OPPOSITION LEADERS following high-level immigration discussions, saying it proves Washington is out to topple the country's communist government.      The U.S. delegation was headed by Craig Kelly, deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs and the highest-ranking American official to visit Cuba in years.

A senior American official defended the meeting, saying U.S. policy is to reach out to all sectors of Cuban society - not just the communist government.

American officials "called together dozens of their mercenaries" hours after concluding highly anticipated talks on migration issues with Cuban leaders in an undisclosed Havana location, Cuba's Foreign Ministry said.

Elizardo Sanchez, head of the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, confirmed that a group of Cuban dissident leaders met with the U.S. delegation late Friday at the residence of the head of the U.S. Interests Section, which Washington keeps in Havana because it has no diplomatic relations with the island.

Such a meeting is not unusual when U.S. diplomats visit. But enraged Cuban leaders say the dissidents are not pro-democracy activists, independent journalists and organizers of political opposition groups, but paid agents of Washington planted to destabilize the island's political system.

In a statement published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma, the Foreign Ministry said U.S. leaders' meeting with dissidents was "contrary to the spirit of cooperation and understanding showed on Cuba's part" during the immigration talks and "demonstrated anew that (U.S.) priorities are more related to supporting the counterrevolution and the promotion of subversion to destabilize the Cuban revolution than with the creation of a climate conducive to real solutions to bilateral problems."

"From the very day he arrived in the country, the head of the North American delegation was warned" that a visit with dissidents would not be tolerated. The Ministry claimed that Washington funnels more than $20 million to groups that openly oppose its government, many based in southern Florida.

When asked why the meeting with dissidents went ahead despite Cuba's explicit request that it not, a senior State Department official said the outreach is part of U.S. government policy around the world, not just Cuba.

"We believe in reaching out to broad sectors of society in all countries that we deal with ... and we don't make exceptions in particular countries," the official said.

The official, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the meeting, spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said Washington thanked Cuba for allowing American relief planes destined for Haiti to overfly Cuban territory, and also expressed a willingness to work with Cuban doctors on the ground in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.

While meeting with their Cuban counterparts earlier Friday, delegation officials strayed from the topic of immigration and called for the immediate release of an American held in a maximum-security prison without charge for nearly three months.

Cuba alleges Alan P. Gross, who came to the island as an American government contractor, is a spy whose arrest is more evidence Washington is working to topple its political system. Relatives of the 60-year-old Maryland resident maintain he is a veteran development worker who was distributing communications equipment to Cuban Jewish groups.

The State Department official said the U.S. delegation called for Gross's "immediate release" and categorically denied he was spying.

"We made very clear our position," the official said, adding that the Cuban side "took it on board."

The official said the U.S. asked Cubans to share any evidence against Gross but did not say whether they complied.

Except for Gross' case and the subsequent American meeting with dissidents, both sides had offered restrained praise for the immigration discussions, which lasted about five hours. The Cubans said the talks were positive and respectful, while the U.S. called them part of a larger, constructive process.

The State Department official said that some members of the delegation were staying on in Cuba for several more days, but that the lower-level meetings would be limited to immigration. Kelly, the delegation head, left Cuba on Saturday.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry said in its Saturday statement that its delegation also talked about subjects not related to immigration, including the release of five Cuban agents imprisoned in Miami since the 1990s after being convicted of spying. Cuba considers them anti-terrorist fighters who were trying to shut down a bombing campaign by anti-Castro Cuban-Americans.

Sanchez, the Cuban dissident, told The Associated Press that about 40 opposition figures took part in the meeting with Kelly on Friday night.

He said the American diplomat expressed the "good will" of President Barack Obama's administration to improve Washington's icy relationship with Cuba.

"I told him I was skeptical that Cuba would respond to Obama's gestures," Sanchez said.

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MIAMI, FLORIDA
{02-15-2010}

KEEPING VENEZUELA IN THE DARK
ALINA FERNANDEZ REVUELTA

`VAMPIRES IN HAVANA WAS THE NAME OF A VERY POPULAR CARTOON SERIES ON CUBAN TV WHEN I WAS GROWING UP. Some human-like bats from Transylvania were immunized to the tropical sun by a substance called Vampisol and could thus stroll safely through the streets of Havana, looking for ``Zerum Positivum'' blood.

Those vampires ruled the Cuban TV screens, sharing programming space with another imaginary character, the Incandescent Villain. This evildoer turned on lights throughout the island in violation of official proclamations to reduce electrical consumption. He was pursued by the Click Brigade, who turned off lights one by one.

Today ``Vampires in Caracas'' should be the headline for the series of news stories generated by the presence of Cuban Communications Minister Ramiro Valdés on Bolivarian soil.

The recent transfer of that official to Venezuela has generated multiple theories, the main one being that Cuba's Raúl Castro wants to place the sea between himself and his sinister vice president. Much is said about their mutual antipathy. For the Cuban people, this move would be beneficial because it implies a schism in the island's political leadership.

But naming Valdés, a former Cuban Interior Minister, as an ``advisor on issues of electricity'' is a contemptible mockery of already suffering Venezuelans. This Incandescent Villain is after the more than $2 billion that Chávez is willing to pay for advice to implement the Cuban revolutionary-style torture and control that deprives individuals of their right to turn on the lights, to see and to act of their own free will.

The Incandescent Villain has gone to Venezuela in search of Zerum Positivum, i.e., real blood, a subject this ascetic and gaunt character knows all too well.

Thanks to the good advice from this expert in repressive ``special effects,'' Chávez is already testing four-hour blackouts in Venezuela on a rotating basis. The power blackouts I experienced in Cuba lasted eight hours, and I don't recommend them to anyone. In addition to making our sleep impossible, they caused the little food we had managed to collect to spoil.

And I might add that, on those interminable nights, the Secret Police under Valdés did many evil things that never came to light.

Valdés arrives in Venezuela preceded by another specialty, another type of gloom cast by this emissary of enlightenment -- cybernetic darkness. Thanks to his skill, most Cubans remain ignorant of the Internet, Facebook and Twitter -- except for a small group of brave bloggers who get their messages out to the world with the help of friends in other countries. Thanks to Valdés, Cuba remains prehistoric in communications.

It is impossible to think of this man without associating him with the filthy dungeons of the colonial fortresses that continue to serve as prisons in Cuba.

Anyone who believes the story that the Dark Island, the Pearl of the Antillean Blackouts, is going to fill Caracas with kilowatts is foolish enough to believe that Transylvanian vampires roam Havana.

From now on, much care should be taken by the patriotic Venezuelan students who protest in defense of their increasingly violated rights. The fact is that this hybrid -- half Havana vampire, half Incandescent Villain -- knows nothing about kilowatts but a lot about repressing, silencing and imprisoning.

Alina Fernández Revuelta is the author of Castro's Daughter: an Exile's Memoir of Cuba.

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HAVANA, CUBA
(02-10-2010}

EX-CUBAN DICTATOR FIDEL CASTRO: MORE THAN 1,000 CUBAN-EDUCATED MDS TO HELP HAITIANS
EFE

MORE THAN 1,000 DOCTORS AND MEDICAL STUDENTS TRAINED IN CUBA will treat patients at dozens of hospitals and rehabilitation centers for people injured in last month’s earthquake in Haiti, Fidel Castro said in an article published Monday.

“There will be dozens of mobile hospitals, rehabilitation centers and hospitals, where more than 1,000 doctors and students in the final years of medical school – coming from Haiti, Venezuela, Santo Domingo, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile and other brother countries – will provide services,” the retired president said.

“We have the honor already of having a number of U.S. doctors who also studied at the ELAM,” he said, referring to Cuba’s Latin American Medical School.

“We’re ready to cooperate with those countries and institutions that want to participate in these efforts to provide medical services in Haiti,” Castro said.

Castro, who stepped down two years ago in favor of younger brother Raul, noted that “Venezuela already contributed field housing, medical equipment, medicines and food” to attend to the needs of the survivors of the quake, which killed more than 200,000 people and is “the greatest tragedy” that has ever occurred in the Americas. EFE

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HAVANA, CUBA
{02-01-2010}

WE SEND DOCTORS, NOT SOLDIERS        
REFLECTIONS OF FORMER CUBAN DICTATOR FIDEL CASTRO:

IN MY REFLECTION OF JANUARY 14, two days after the catastrophe in Haiti, which destroyed that neighboring sister nation, I wrote: "In the area of healthcare and others the Haitian people has received the cooperation of Cuba, even though this is a small and blockaded country. Approximately 400 doctors and healthcare workers are helping the Haitian people free of charge. Our doctors are working every day at 227 of the 237 communes of that country. On the other hand, no less than 400 young Haitians have been graduated as medical doctors in our country. They will now work alongside the reinforcement that traveled there yesterday to save lives in that critical situation. Thus, up to one thousand doctors and healthcare personnel can be mobilized without any special effort; and most are already there willing to cooperate with any other State that wishes to save Haitian lives and rehabilitate the injured."

"The head of our medical brigade has informed that the situation is difficult but we are already saving lives."

Hour after hour, day and night, the Cuban health professionals have started to work nonstop in the few facilities that were able to stand, in tents, and out in the parks or open-air spaces, since the population feared new aftershocks.

The situation was far more serious than was originally thought. Tens of thousands of injured were clamoring for help in the streets of Port-au-Prince; innumerable persons laid, dead or alive, under the rubbled clay or adobe used in the construction of the houses where the overwhelming majority of the population lived. Buildings, even the most solid, collapsed. Besides, it was necessary to look for the Haitian doctors who had graduated at the Latin American Medicine School throughout all the destroyed neighborhoods. Many of them were affected, either directly or indirectly, by the tragedy.

Some UN officials were trapped in their dormitories and tens of lives were lost, including the lives of several chiefs of MINUSTAH, a UN contingent. The fate of hundreds of other members of its staff was unknown.

The catastrophe shocked the whole world, which was able to see what was going on through the images aired by the main international TV networks. Governments from everywhere in the planet announced they would be sending rescue experts, food, medicines, equipment and other resources.

In conformity with the position publicly announced by Cuba, medical staff from different countries -namely Spain, Mexico, and Colombia, among others- worked very hard alongside our doctors at the facilities they had improvised. Organizations such as PAHO and other friendly countries like Venezuela and other nations supplied medicines and other resources. The impeccable behavior of Cuban professionals and their leaders was absolutely void of chauvinism and remained out of the limelight.

Any significant cooperation that is offered to our country will not be rejected, but its acceptance will fully depend on the importance and transcendence of the assistance that is requested from the human resources of our homeland.

It is only fair to state that, up until this moment, our modest aircrafts and the important human resources that Cuba has made available to the Haitian people have arrived at their destination without any difficulty whatsoever.

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SEAN PENN WANTS REPORTERS JAILED FOR CALLING CHAVEZ 'DICTATOR'

* Organization of American States report rebukes Venezuela on Human Rights
EL UNIVERSAL
* Polling firm: 54 percent of Venezuelans distrust Chavez
EL UNIVERSAL
* Report details violence and lost freedoms in Venezuela
EL UNIVERSAL
* Trying to revive socialism is quite insane
EL UNIVERSAL
* Colombia President Alvaro Uribe and dictator Hugo Chavez lock horns in Mexico
EL UNIVERSAL
* Chavez's call to Obama would be a sign of isolation
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MIAMI, FLORIDA
{03-09-2010}

SEAN PENN WANTS REPORTERS JAILED FOR CALLING CHAVEZ 'DICTATOR'
FOXNEWS.COM

FIRST AMENDMENT BE DAMNED . . . If Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn had his way, any journalist who called Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a dictator would quickly find himself behind bars.

Penn, appearing on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" on Friday, defended Chavez during a segment in which he detailed his work with the JP Haitian Relief Organization, which he co-founded.

"Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it" said Penn, winner of two Best Actor Academy Awards. "And this is mainstream media, who should -- truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies."

It was just the beginning of a busy weekend for Penn. When asked on CBS' "Sunday Morning" about those who question his motives for his humanitarian work in Haiti, he said:

"Do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah. You know, but I'm not going to spend a lot of energy on it."

Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News' senior judicial analyst, said the same constitutional protection that applies to journalists also applies to Penn, who can say pretty much anything he wants in the "political arena" -- aside from an immediate incitement of violence.

"What he is saying is protected, as wacky and weird as it is," Napolitano told FoxNews.com. "But the substance of what he's saying would be absolutely contrary to the First Amendment, which fully protects all political opinions. So if a journalist says Dick Cheney should go to jail, the journalist is privileged to say that."

"Mr. Penn is calling for a communist-like regime in which journalists who criticize the government are sent to jail because of that criticism," Napolitano added. "That is utterly un-American and hasn't happened here since the Civil War."

Lis Wiehl, a former federal prosecutor and Fox News legal analyst, echoed Napolitano’s comments, saying Penn’s statement is "completely counter" to First Amendment protections.

"Unless you're yelling 'fire' in a crowded theatre, i.e. stirring up immediate violence, you have the right as an American to voice your opinion, even if others (including Penn) disagree," she wrote FoxNews.com. "And, yes, Penn has the right to voice his opinion as well -- that's the beauty of the First Amendment. And, don't forget, truth is an absolute defense to any defamation or slander lawsuit."

According to a study by the Business and Media Institute, news coverage pertaining to Chavez from 1998 to 2006 found the Venezuelan president's human rights record was mentioned in only 10 percent of stories, and he was described as a leftist in 12 percent of stories.

Napolitano, meanwhile, said Penn apparently prefers "thuggery" to democracy.

"In light of his ignorance of freedom of speech, his wishing rectal cancer on his detractors, and his embracing tyrants, Mr. Penn obviously prefers thuggery to democracy," he continued. "Were he free to do so, he'd be a tyrant. Now we'll see if he can get me jailed for saying that!"

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WASHINGTON, D.C.
{03-04-2010}

ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES REPORT REBUKES VENEZUELA ON HUMAN RIGHTS
ASSOCIATED PRESS

THE HUMAN RIGHTS BRANCH OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES ISSUED A BLISTERING 300-PAGE REPORT WEDNESDAY AGAINST VENEZUELA, saying that the oil-rich country run by President Hugo Chávez constrains free expression, the rights of its citizens to protest and the ability of opposition politicians to function.

The report, compiled and written by the OAS's Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, reflects growing concern in the region over how one of the organization's member states is governed. The document holds legitimacy for human rights investigators and diplomats because it has the imprimatur of the commission, which is run independently from the OAS and largely free of its political machinations.

"This is a professional report, and the commission has been progressively more critical about Chávez over the years," said Michael Shifter, an analyst who tracks Venezuela for the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. "There's a growing sense of the greater risks of human rights abuses and authoritarianism in Venezuela."

The commission has in the past issued major reports about serious violations in a number of countries, notably targeting the military junta in 1970s-era Argentina and the quasi-dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori in Peru.

Chávez has railed against the OAS as beholden to the interests of the United States. Venezuela declined to cooperate with the commission, its members said, prompting commissioners -- jurists and rights activists from Antigua, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador and the United States -- to hold hearings and seek out Venezuelan activists and politicians to compile information about the suspected abuses.

The report asserts that the state has punished critics, including anti-government television stations, demonstrators and opposition politicians who advocate a form of government different from Chávez's, which is allied with Cuba and favors state intervention in the economy.

The report outlines how, after 11 years in power, Chávez holds tremendous influence over other branches of government, particularly the judiciary. Judges who issue decisions the government does not like can be fired, the report says, and hundreds of others are in provisional posts where they can easily be removed.

The commission said some adversaries of the government who have been elected to office, such as Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, have seen their powers usurped by Chávez.

"The threats to human rights and democracy are many and very serious, and that's why we published the report," Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, a member of the commission who specializes in Venezuela, said by phone from his home in Brazil.

Chávez did not have an immediate response to the report. But in a phone interview Wednesday morning, Roy Chaderton, Venezuela's ambassador to the OAS, said the commission had become a "confrontational political actor instead of an advocate for defending human rights."

Chaderton said the commission had shown support for a failed 2002 coup against Chávez -- an accusation denied by the commission -- and charged that its members had dedicated themselves to weakening progressive social movements in Latin America. "They have become a mafia of bureaucrats who want to play a bigger role in the efforts against Venezuela's government," Chaderton said.

The commission, in compiling the report, incorporated responses from Venezuelan authorities to written questions. The government says it permits protests and opposition groups, while focusing much of its energy on improving Venezuelans' standard of living.

Pinheiro said the commission recognized the government's progress in areas such as reducing poverty. But Pinheiro said that there can be "no trade-off" between political and economic progress. He said the commission's hope is that the Venezuelan government will make improvements based on the report's recommendations.

"This report, instead of isolating Venezuela, is a call for Venezuela to come on board," Pinheiro said.

Others who track developments in Venezuela, though, said Chávez is prone to a disproportionate response when criticized. After releasing a critical report about Chávez two years ago, José Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch, and a fellow investigator for the group were detained at their Caracas hotel and escorted by armed agents onto a Brazil-bound flight.

"It would be nice to think the Chávez government would pay attention to the report," Vivanco said. But he noted that the president had "responded to all such criticism by attacking its critics, often using conspiracy theories and far-fetched allegations to distract attention from their own human rights practices."

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{03-04-2010}

POLLING FIRM: 54 PERCENT OF VENEZUELANS DISTRUST CHÁVEZ
EL UNIVERSAL

VENEZUELAN VOTERS' CONFIDENCE IN HUGO CHÁVEZ is beginning is waning as a result of the electricity crisis, water rationing, economic measures, decisions against private property and attempts at leading the country into a Marxist system.

According to a poll about Venezuela's governance, political situation and electoral expectations carried out by the Venezuelan Institute for Data Analysis (IVAD), at least five out every 10 Venezuelans say that they have "little or no confidence" in Chávez. Further, six out of every 10 Venezuelans disapprove Chávez's behavior with regard to the main issues affecting the country.

According to the IVAD, 39.8 percent of respondents believe that "the major responsible for the electricity problem is the government and President Chávez." Regarding water shortage, 35 percent of citizens attributed the crisis to the meteorological phenomenon "El Niño," whereas 29.4 percent blamed it on "the Venezuelan government and President Hugo Chávez."

NGovernment explanations about the positive impact of economic measures do not convince most Venezuelans, as 34.2 percent consider that such measures will help overcome the situation, while 57.6 percent say that the measures will worsen Venezuela's situation. Meanwhile, 55.5 percent of respondents consider that the measures only respond to an electoral strategy.

On the other hand, government's decision to expropriate farms, supermarkets, buildings, etc. is viewed as a threat to private property by 69.9 percent of respondents. According to IVAD's poll, 70.1 percent prefers the private property model, while only 26.1 percent support the social ownership and communal models proposed by the Head of State.

Criticism of President Chávez has a direct impact on political self-definition: 28.9 percent say they are pro-Chávez: 41.2 percent say they are against Chávez and 23.1 percent would rather not be identified with either side. Meanwhile, 29.1 percent of people would rather vote for independent candidates in the parliamentary elections in September 2010.

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WASHINGTON, D.C.
{03-02-2010}

REPORT DETAILS VIOLENCE AND LOST FREEDOMS IN VENEZUELA
THE WASHINGTON, POST

THE ORGANIZATION of American States has failed to respond to the steady deterioration of Latin American democracy during the past few years, even though the defense of democracy is supposed to be one of its primary missions. Now the OAS -- and governments throughout the region -- have been shamed by one of its own branch organizations. Last week, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a searing and authoritative report on the destruction of Venezuela's political institutions and the erosion of freedom under President Hugo Chávez. It's a powerful and sometimes chilling account of what OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza and the organization's permanent council have been ignoring.

In meticulous detail, the 300-page report documents how Mr. Chávez's regime has done away with judicial independence, intimidated or eliminated opposition media, stripped elected opposition leaders of their powers, and used bogus criminal charges to silence human rights groups. Much of this has been reported. But the commission, made up of seven jurists and rights activists from Antigua, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and the United States, offers a level of detail and a stance of impartiality that ought to discredit those defenders of Mr. Chávez who paint his critics as Yanqui imperialists or coup-plotters.

Particularly shocking is the commission's account of the role that violence and murder have played in Mr. Chávez's concentration of power. The report documents killings of journalists, opposition protesters and farmers; it says that 173 trade union leaders and members were slain between 1997 and 2009 "in the context of trade union violence, with contract killings being the most common method for attacking union leaders." The report says that in 2008 Venezuela's human rights ombudsman recorded 134 complaints of arbitrary killings by security forces, 87 allegations of torture and 33 cases of forced disappearance. It also asserts that radical groups allied with Mr. Chávez "are perpetrating acts of violence with the involvement or acquiescence of state agents."

There has been no accountability for these acts. "Impunity," says the report, "is a common characteristic that equally affects cases of reprisal against dissent, attacks on human rights defenders and on journalists, excessive use of force in response to peaceful protests, abuses of state force, common and organized crime, violence in prisons, violence against women, and other serious human rights violations."

To read the report is to be dismayed anew by the silence of Venezuela's neighbors and of the principal OAS organs. Mr. Insulza, characteristically, responded to the report with an arms-length statement that underlined the commission's autonomy and suggested "dialogue" between it and Mr. Chávez's government "to clear up doubts and differences." Mr. Insulza is running for reelection as secretary general, so far without opposition; the United States supplies 60 percent of his budget. If his reaction to the report is any indication, Congress will be expected to fund OAS tolerance of Mr. Chávez's repression for five more years.

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{03-01-2010}

"TRYING TO REVIVE SOCIALISM IS QUITE INSANE" 
INTERVIEW / HÉCTOR SILVA MICHELENA, MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES

HÉCTOR SILVA MICHELENA THINKS THAT THE PROJECT HEADED BY PRESIDENT HUGO CHÁVEZ UNDOUBTEDLY HEADS FOR A STATE-PARTY MERGER

HÉCTOR SILVA MICHELENA HAS SPENT MORE THAN SIX DECADES IN THE STUDY OF VENEZUELA. He is a member of the National Academy of Economic Sciences, where he just delivered a controversial speech on ethics. Rather than making an analysis of the country, he uses psychiatry: insanity deals with "repeating the same thing time after time, waiting for different results."

Upon having said that, he shoots at the heart of the project led by President Hugo Chávez. "Trying to revive socialism; repeating something that failed already is quite insane; history has empirically shown that it is unfeasible, and theoretically, as it worked, is also unfeasible."

Unfeasibility of socialist economies stems from the "allocation of most goods by an administrative establishment where producers feel not forced to compete among them; the direct control of companies by the party and its political sections, and the lack of political democracy and freedom in all senses."

Lack of innovation, of technological improvements, is another symptom to be considered in the socialist pathology. "In this regard, socialist economies soundly failed. As a matter of fact, in the absence of a thick market competition, both domestic and foreign, no company is bound to innovate; no innovative processes are found in an economy, but those fostered by competition."

As for Venezuela, he noted: "these characteristic features are not accomplished, yet they are moving forward. Today, denying that the State will be the great owner is impossible. The First Socialist Plan has a chart where it can be construed that the so-called social production enterprises and the State would amount to 75 percent of the GDP in 2013, whereas the private sector will decrease from 57 percent of the GDP to 25 percent."

"In the 150 businesses seized by the government, there is no shareholding of workers; everything goes for the State and the party, because here a State-party merger goes. The public sector in 2007 accounted for 25.5 percent of the GDP; today it is above 30 percent. People who work for the State because of continued expropriations, have increased by a million, and here is the disastrous output problem at the Venezuelan Guayana's Corporation."

"Theoretically, companies which lack competition are not viable; therefore, innovation in the project is the other way around, the dairy cow, the hydroponic plantation, communes; it is like going backwards, back to the past."

If, as you said, any attempt to revive socialism is insane, why, in your opinion, the country has fallen into such stage of madness?

Fidel Castro transferred it to Hugo Chávez; his influence is terrible because Chávez is in love with Fidel. There is also a very basic mindset; thinking that we have to espouse socialism to remove profit, gain, and attain happiness; hence, the need of a hyper-leader, the nonexpendable redeemer. Stalin felt like that no matter the crimes he committed.

Hugo Chávez has started to quote Karl Marx. Speaking of the labor theory of value, the surplus value stolen by businessmen from workers, makes any sense?

A third of century ago, it was proven that the labor theory of value is false. According to this theory by Marx, the value of things comes from labor; this turned out to be false, because the value of things actually comes from their usefulness, shortage. Therefore, such idea, according to which the worker produces the gain and the capitalist exploits him by appropriating it, is false.

Nowadays, we know that exploitation is inherent in any system where there are differences or inequalities in terms of any kind of supply available to individuals.

What could happen if the government wins the election scheduled for September and retains the control over the National Assembly?

If the government wins in the upcoming election, collapse, insanity, will speed up.

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CANCUM, MEXICO
{02-24-2010}

COLOMBIAN  PRESIDENTE ALVARO URIBE AND DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ LOCK HORNS IN MEXICO 
AFO

A HEATED CONFRONTATION ALLEGEDLY TOOK PLACE BETWEEN COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT ALVARO URIBE AND VENEZUELAN DICTATOR  HUGO CHAVEZ at the Rio Group Summit in Mexico on Monday, leading to the formation of a group of presidential arbitrators to mediate between the disputing nations.

The altercation between Uribe and Chavez occurred during a private lunch for national leaders at the Cancun summit, according to a Colombian official, who asked to remain anonymous. No media was present.

According to an official who wishes to remain anonymous, the incident was sparked when Uribe reproached Chavez for Venezuela's unofficial trade embargo against Colombia.

Chavez reportedly responded that his life is in danger due to the presence of 300 Colombian paramilitaries in Venezuela, who came to assassinate him.

"Uribe questioned Chavez about his country's trade embargo on Colombia. Chavez didn't like this and began to play the victim, he accused Colombia of sending paramilitaries to kill him and he threatened to leave the meeting," a Colombian diplomatic source in Bogota, who wished to remain anonymous, told AFP.

'Be a man! These issues are meant to be discussed in these venues. You're brave speaking at a distance, but a coward when it comes to talking face to face," was Uribe's response to Chavez's threat to leave.

At this point several presidents, including Cuban President Raul Castro, intervened to prevent the situation from escalating.

The presidents of Mexico, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Jamaica and Argentina were also seated at the table at the time, according to a source from the Mexican delegation.

The presidents then met first with Uribe and later with Chavez and agreed to form a commission to help resolve the ongoing disputes between the two nations. Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez confirmed on Tuesday that the dispute has led to the formation of a group of arbitrators to act as mediators in the conflict.

Bermudez told W Radio that the creation of the group of mediators, which reportedly includes the presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, was a positive outcome of the heated discussion between the Andean nations' heads of states.

Neither the Venezuelan president nor Venezuelan authorities gave their version of events to the media, but Chavez did state that a group of friendly nations had been formed "to win back trust."

Shortly after the incident Uribe told the press that his government and Venezuela's had agreed "to cease harmful public interventions" and confirmed a group of nations had been formed "to help overcome differences [between Colombia and Venezuela]."

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, host of the summit at which 32 Latin American countries are assembled, commented that Venezuela and Colombia need to create a dialogue to "avoid accusations and recriminations."

Uribe and Chavez will continue to participate in the summit, which ends Tuesday.

Diplomatic relations between Colombia and Venezuela are currently frozen after Colombia signed an agreement last year with the U.S. that allows the Americans to use Colombian military bases and civilian airports for counternarcotics and counterterrorism missions.

Chavez believes the agreement undermines sovereignty in the region and is its most outspoken opponent.

The border region has long been a source of tension between the countries, as Venezuela accuses Colombia of allowing right-wing paramilitary fighters to enter Venezuelan territory, while Colombia says the border is often crossed by left-wing guerrillas seeking refuge in the neighboring country.

Frozen diplomatic relations have adversely affected the Colombian economy, with exports to Venezuela down 79% in December 2009.

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{02-16-2010}

THE VENEZUELAN DICTATOR  HUGO CHÁVEZ'S CALL TO OBAMA WOULD BE A SIGN OF ISOLATION  
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VENEZUELA'S INTERNATIONAL ISOLATION AND ECONOMIC DEPENDENCE ON THE UNITED STATES have apparently led dictator Hugo Chávez to ask his US counterpart Barack Obama to "rectify" his position and change the US policy towards Venezuela.  Chávez called for a bilateral relationship with the United States similar to the approach established with former President Bill Clinton.

This request contrasts with earlier statements made by the Venezuelan leader with regard to the US government. Chávez's remarks have been characterized by a confrontational discourse.

"In recent statements and actions taken by the dictator (Chávez) he seems to be nervous and angry because he has realized that the Venezuelan government is increasingly isolated from the international community," said former Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations Milos Alcalay.

For the diplomat, such isolation is mirrored in the statements of the European Parliament for the sake of RCTV International and the acknowledgment of the new Honduras government by several countries.

DEPENDENT ECONOMY

Caracas' trade dependence on Washington cannot be ignored. As stated by Alcalay, Venezuela's trade relations "are not with the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) or Cuba, which is given our money. The despicable dollar of the US empire is what sustains us."

"Venezuela is among the largest oil suppliers (to the United States) and one of the main Latin American customers of US goods," said the analyst as an example.

DIPLOMATIC SHIFT

The task of improving relations between the two countries looks complicated, because "the United States has not been the one which has launched such permanent confrontation," Alcalay said, therefore, the change must come from Chávez's government.

"If the relations between the two Heads of States are to go back to normal, a number of parallel steps needs to be taken," the ambassador said. He advised the Venezuelan government against having a confrontational stance and on substantiating any refusal of any accusation by Obama's administration.

"Saying that I want to talk is not enough; international agreements should be observed; the Inter-American Democratic Charter should be observed; property rights should be enforced in accordance with international agreements, based on principles and international values."

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{02-10-2010}

VENEZUELA’S DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ DECLARES ‘EMERGENCY’ ON ELECTRICITY CRISIS
BLOOMBERG

VENEZUELAN DICTATOR  HUGO CHAVEZ declared a national “emergency” in the electricity sector as the country’s worst drought in 50 years dries up water supplies in hydroelectric dams.

“It’s a true emergency,” Chavez said yesterday during the debut of his state radio show, “Suddenly With Chavez.” “Some opposition sectors are determined to blame the government that it hasn’t rained in more than a year. The fundamental cause is the ill-named El Nino phenomenon, a product of climate changes that are hitting the world.”

The government has ordered rolling blackouts throughout the South American country to prevent a collapse of the power grid. Chavez retracted a plan to conserve electricity in Caracas and fired his electricity minister after traffic lights were left without power. A new plan is being drafted. The Guri dam, which holds the water used to generate two-thirds of the country’s power, is 46 percent full, down from 60 percent at the start of the year, according to the National Administration Center, which operates the power grid.

The emergency declaration will allow the country to speed up its response to the crisis, Electricity Minister Ali Rodriguez said yesterday on Chavez’s radio program. Venezuela hired a Chinese company to build power plants, with 2.7 gigawatts of generating capacity, in the next two years to help ease the energy shortage, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said yesterday on “Suddenly With Chavez” after returning from a trip to Russia, China and Japan.

The plants will be powered by diesel, natural gas or fuel oil, Ramirez said, without identifying the company that will build the plants. Ramirez said he met with Japanese officials and representatives of Mitsubishi Corp., Japan Oil Gas and Metals National Corp., Inpex Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. Chavez said winners of an auction for minority stakes in three Orinoco Belt oil fields will be announced tomorrow, confirming the timetable stated previously. A joint venture with Russia in the country’s Orinoco Belt would produce 450,000 barrels a day when fully operational, with an investment of $18 billion, Chavez said.

The Chavez government has increased investment in thermoelectric generation tenfold in the last 10 years, Rodriguez said. The severity of the drought has rendered that investment “insufficient,” he said. The government plans to incorporate 4,007 megawatts of power into the national electrical system this year, enough to resolve “the basic crisis,” Rodriguez said. Venezuela will add 15,000 megawatts of power generation by 2015 at a cost of $15 billion, Chavez said.

Venezuela will add another 440 new megawatts for the country’s steel and aluminum factories, 175 megawatts of which will be available April 15 and the rest May 15, Basic Industries and Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz said on the radio show. This new generation will free up the same amount for the national electricity system, Chavez said. The government will add 1,500 additional megawatts of power this year as a result of Ramirez’s Asia trip, Chavez said.

Venezuela has sought help to resolve its electricity crisis from its allies including Cuban Vice President Ramiro Valdez and Argentine Planning Minister Julio de Vido, who have both visited the country.

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* BROADCASTING ASSOCIATION REJECTS MEASURES...
* CLINTON URGES RECOGNITION OF HONDURAS ...
* VENEZUELA ECONOMY SHRINKS 5.8% IN THE FOURTH...
* RUSSIA FUMES AT US MISSILE DEFENSE PLAN
* BRAZIL: IRAN SHOULD NOT BE 'PUSHED AGAINST A WALL...'
* CUBAN DISSIDENT ON HUNGER STRIKE IS RUSHED TO...
* CURFEW IN CHILE EXTENDED AS ARMY SEEKS CONTROL
* RUSSIA READY TO CONSIDER NEW SANCTIONS AGAINST...
* JITTERY CHILEANS AWAKE TO MORE AFTERSHOCKS
* UNITED STATES WORRIED ABOUT VENEZUELA, COLOMBIA
* WASHINGTON CONCERNED ABOUT VENEZUELA'S ARM...
* RCTV CHAIRMAN LAUNCHES NEW PRIVATE TV CHANNEL
* CHÁVEZ RAILS ON POLAR AGAIN
* ALEXANDER M. HAIG, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE, DIED
* EX-US SECRETARY OF STATE ALEXANDER HAIG CRITICAL...
* A LOOK AT NATO COMBAT RULES IN AFGHANISTAN
* AHMADINEJAD: IRAN INSTALLING ADVANCED ENRICHMENT...

MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY
{03-10-2010}

BROADCASTING ASSOCIATION REJECTS MEASURES AGAINST RCTVI
ASSOCIATED PRESS

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTING (IAB) considered "illegal and arbitrary" a decision adopted by the Venezuelan government which denied the request to launch private TV station Radio Caracas Internacional (RCTV) as a national audiovisual production service.

The IAB, which includes more than 17,000 private radio and TV stations in the Americas, Asia and Europe, filed a complaint in a statement released in Montevideo. The association is based in the Uruguayan capital.

AIB says that the explanations of Hugo Chávez's government to deny the authorization to RCTV are illegal and arbitrary. The AIB maintains that the Venezuelan TV station "provided in a timely manner all the documents that supports its international programming," AP reported.

The AIB complained that the "description of facts and its dire consequences is carried out unilaterally by a government agency, without the intervention of any independent court. In fact, it will result in the full and final withdrawal of RCTV from Venezuelan cable operators, thus depriving Venezuela's people of an independent TV channel, severely affecting their right to information and freedom of expression."

The broadcaster association said that with these measures, the Venezuelan government is "violating international treaties and constitutional rights." The IAB called the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to take the necessary steps to prevent "that the Venezuelan government violates with impunity fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and due process."

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SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA
{03-09-2010}

CLINTON URGES RECOGNITION OF HONDURAS GOVERNMENT
MATTHEW LEE //  ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON said Thursday the Obama administration will resume aid to Honduras that was suspended after a coup last year and urged Latin American nations to recognize the new Honduran government.

Clinton said the Honduran government that took office in January was democratically elected, was reconciling the population split by last June's coup and deserved normal relations with countries that cut ties after the ouster of the former president.

"We think that Honduras has taken important and necessary steps that deserve the recognition and the normalization of relations," she told a news conference on the sidelines of a meeting of regional officials in Costa Rica.

Clinton praised steps taken by new Honduran President Porfirio Lobo, whose election in November began the resolution of the political crisis caused by the ouster of his predecessor, Manuel Zelaya. Zelaya, a leftist populist, was toppled while pushing a constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to run for re-election.

Clinton said she had notified Congress that more than $31 million in U.S. assistance suspended after the coup would be restored. She also said it was time for Honduras to be readmitted to the Organization of American States.

Clinton will attend a meeting of Central American leaders, including Lobo, in Guatemala on Friday at which Honduras will the main topic. Clinton has been making the case for Honduras at each stop on her current six-nation tour of Latin America.

Some countries she has visited - notably Argentina and Brazil - are balking at restoring ties with Honduras. They wanted Zelaya restored to power and believe recognition would reward the coup leaders who ran an interim government until January.

Clinton said she disagreed with such delays.

"I don't know what they are waiting for, but that is their right to wait," she said. "We believe that President Lobo and his administration have taken the steps necessary to restore democracy."

"We share the condemnation of the coup that occurred, but we think it is time to move forward and ensure that such disruptions of democracy do not and cannot happen in the future."

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{03-07-2010}

VENEZUELA ECONOMY SHRINKS 5.8% IN THE FOURTH QUARTER 
EL UNIVERSAL

THE VENEZUELAN ECONOMY SHRANK BY 5.8% IN THE LAST THREE MONTHS OF 2009 compared with year earlier, the country's central bank has announced.

For the whole of 2009, the Latin American economy shrank 3.3%.

The bank blamed the contraction on the global economic crisis and "the weakness of the price of oil and output reductions" set by producer group Opec.

Venezuela relies heavily on revenues from its oil reserves for its economic growth.

The country's economy shrank faster in the final three months of 2009 than in the previous quarter.

"Venezuela did better than most countries at the beginning of the global recession, but now it's in greater trouble," said Juan Pablo Fuentes at Moody's Economy.com.

Economists expect the economy to record very low growth in 2010.

Earlier this month, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed a decree declaring an "electricity emergency" to help his government tackle power shortages.

He said the country was facing the worst drought in 100 years. Rolling blackouts are already in force in parts of Venezuela.

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MOSCOW, RUSSIA
{03-06-2010}

RUSSIA FUMES AT US MISSILE DEFENSE PLAN
VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV  //  ASSOCIATED PRESS

RUSSIA HAS SERIOUS CONCERNS ABOUT U.S. PLANS TO DEPLOY MISSILE INTERCEPTORS IN ROMANIA, the Foreign Ministry said Friday.

The statement from ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko reflected Moscow's irritation about the U.S. missile defense plans and signaled tensions in relations with Washington.

Nesterenko said that Russia has been annoyed to learn about the move from the media.

"We are worried that we find out about important decisions regarding the U.S. missile defense in Europe from the media rather than our official counterparts in Washington or Bucharest," Nesterenko told a briefing.

Nesterenko wouldn't comment on whether the dispute could affect talks with the United States on a key nuclear arms reduction treaty that expired in December.

But other Russian officials, including the nation's top military officer, recently said the U.S. missile defense plans threaten Russia and have slowed down negotiations on a successor deal to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Russia and the U.S. had hoped to reach agreement before START expired on Dec. 5, but differences persisted. Still, Sergei Prikhodko, President Dmitry Medvedev's foreign policy adviser, said Friday that the Kremlin believes the treaty could be signed in March or April, Russian news agencies reported.

Nesterenko also voiced skepticism about Washington's explanation that the interceptors were needed to protect U.S. troops and NATO allies against the Iranian missile threat.

"Russia has serious questions regarding the true purpose of the U.S. missile defense in Romania," Nesterenko said. "That is why we will consistently oppose any dubious unilateral actions in the missile defense field that could have a negative impact on the international security."

He added that the U.S. plans would make a "fragile European security structure hostage to the imaginary missile threats that are defined unilaterally."

Russia has applauded President Barack Obama's decision to scrap Bush administration plans for missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. But Moscow has grown increasingly critical of the planned site in Romania and also criticized the U.S. plans to deploy Patriot air defense missiles in Poland.

Gen. Nikolai Makarov, the chief of general staff of the Russian armed forces, said that a revised U.S. plan to place missiles in Europe undermines Russia's national defense, rejecting Obama administration promises that the plan is not directed at his country.

On Tuesday, John Beyrle, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, tried to reassure Russia that the placement of American missile interceptors in Romania would not threaten Russia's nuclear capability and is designed only to intercept medium-range missiles, which Russia doesn't have.

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BRASILIA, BRAZIL
{03-05-2010

BRAZIL: IRAN SHOULD NOT BE 'PUSHED AGAINST A WALL' ON NUCLEAR PROGRAM
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BRAZIL'S PRESIDENT SAYS Iran should not be "pushed against a wall" by the international community for its controversial nuclear program.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made the comments just hours before a scheduled meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday.

Clinton is expected to push for Brazilian support for new United Nations sanctions against Iran.

Silva reiterated his nation's position that Brazil believes it is better to negotiate with Iran because sanctions could anger Iranian officials.

Silva also says he wants Iran to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes — as Brazil says it does.

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MIAMI, FLORIDA
{03-04-2010}

CUBAN DISSIDENT ON HUNGER STRIKE IS RUSHED TO HOSPITAL
JUAN O. TAMAYO

CUBAN DISSIDENT GUILLERMO FARIÑAS, who has been refusing food and water for a week, lost consciousness and was rushed to a hospital Wednesday morning, one of his supporters reported. Fariñas was in his home in Santa Clara, praying a rosary with visiting supporters, when he ``suffered a strong pain in his chest and lost consciousness,'' said Licet Zamora Carrandi, who described herself as a spokeswoman.

``Several people rushed into the street, flagged down a car and took him to the hospital,'' Zamora said. Fariñas was still unconscious when he was put aboard the car, she added.  There was no immediate word on his status at the hospital, Zamora told El Nuevo Herald via telephone from Fariñas' home.

Ismel Iglesias, a dissident physician who checked on Fariñas, believed the loss of consciousness was the result of low blood sugar, she added.

Fariñas was one of five Cuban dissidents -- the other four are in prison -- who launched hunger strikes last week to protest the death of jailed hunger striker Orlando Zapata and demand the release of all political prisoners.

Fariñas also has called for the release of some two dozen political prisoners reported to be in ill health, The 48-year-old psychologist and independent journalist also has stopped drinking water despite his poor health as a result of more than 20 previous hunger strikes.

Several of the other hunger strikers later called off their protests but Fariñas told journalists Tuesday that he would persevere ``until the last consequences.''

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SANTIAGO DE CHILE, CHILE
{03-03-2010}

CURFEW IN CHILE EXTENDED AS ARMY SEEKS CONTROL
ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHILEAN AUTHORITIES EXTENDED AN OVERNIGHT CURFEW TO MIDDAY TUESDAY as thousands of troops struggled to contain out of control looting and crime in the wake of the devastating earthquake.

Despite the heavy military presence in the badly damaged city of Concepcion, looters burned stores and residents complained of deteriorating security and slow government delivery of food and other basic supplies. Soldiers fired teargas in efforts to restrict disorder.

Residents of the city, with a population of 600,000, said they were organizing groups to defend their properties from robbers and looters.

The governor of the region, Jaime Tohá, said that 55 people were arrested on Sunday night for violating the curfew after looters raided almost every market in the city. Some residents rifled through abandoned supermarkets for basic supplies while others took advantage of the crisis to rob banks and empty stores of luxury goods.

The Deputy Interior Minister, Patricio Rosende, said that another 105 people were arrested yesterday for looting and other crimes, and that one person had been shot dead during the night.

"Shots were fired. Police took control of the area," he said, without giving details. Last night the roof of a supermarket in Concepción collapsed when looters set fire to it after police tried to disperse them.

The city’s mayor has said the criminal elements were now becoming more organised and systematic following Saturday morning’s 8.8-magnitude quake that killed at least 723 people.

Mayor Jacqueline Van Rysselberghe warned against serious "social tension" in the city. "We need food for the people. We are without supplies, and if we don’t resolve that we are going to have serious security problems during the night," she said. "We are at the end of the month. There are no stocks in the households. But nothing justifies looting, vandalism and theft. We have seen people coming out of supermarkets with plasma screens. If we don’t resolve this problem of food today, we could have a very confrontational situation."

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PARIS, FRANCE
{03-02-2010}

RUSSIA READY TO CONSIDER NEW SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT DMITRY MEDVEDEV signaled his country is ready to consider new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, in an apparent shift of policy.

The Russian leader told reporters Monday at the start of a state visit to France that it would be "desirable" to avoid sanctions — and insisted that any should not harm the Iranian population.

But French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters on Monday that France and Russia have "extremely close" positions regarding sanctions against Iran, according to Reuters.

The comments came after a meeting between Sarkozy and Medvedev.

France is pushing for tough new sanctions against Iran to punish Tehran for its nuclear program, and has become increasingly impatient about Tehran's alleged defiance of U.N. rules aimed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

Russia, which does significant trade with Iran, said last week it would not accept "crippling" sanctions against Iran.

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SANTIAGO DE CHILE, CHILE
{03-01-2010}

JITTERY CHILEANS AWAKE TO MORE AFTERSHOCKS
CNN

NERVOUS RESIDENTS IN CHILE'S CAPITAL WOKE UP SUNDAY MORNING TO MORE AFTERSHOCKS, a day after one of the most powerful earthquakes to hit the world in decades left large swaths of their city in ruins.

"I've been using my glass of water to verify it's not just in my mind," said Luke Mescher, an American college student in Santiago. "You can see the water wobbling back and forth every time that it happens."

The 8.8-magnitude quake struck before dawn Saturday, toppling thousands of houses, affecting 2 million people and dealing a serious blow to one of Latin America's most stable economies.

Authorities placed the preliminary death toll at more than 300, but the government is expected to update the casualty count at 12 p.m. local time (10 a.m. ET).

"The number of victims could get higher," said President-Elect Sebastian Piñera, who will take office in March.

Did you feel the quake? Share photos, videos, info with CNN

On Sunday morning, fears of looting increased in some areas, including hard-hit Concepcion, located about 70 miles (115 kilometers) from Santiago in coastal central Chile.

Desperate residents scrounged for water and supplies inside empty and damaged supermarkets. On Sunday morning, authorities resorted to using tear gas and water cannons in some instances to disperse looters.

But there were not enough police to control all of the people seeking food and supplies from the stores. Some consumers were becoming desperate because supermarkets were closed, and there was no gasoline available.

The quake spawned a tsunami that raced around the world, but initial fears that it would be as devastating as the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean did not materialize.

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WASHINGTON, D.C .
{02-26-2010}

UNITED STATES WORRIED ABOUT VENEZUELA, COLOMBIA 
ASSOCIATED PRESS

"IT IS A SHAME THAT CONFLICTS HAVE ARISEN" BETWEEN COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA, ARTURO VALENZUELA, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said, as quoted by Colombian newspaper El Tiempo.

Colombia's President Álvaro Uribe, and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez were involved in an altercation during the Rio Summit held in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, Efe reported.

"It is problematic that there are political issues that disrupt trade because this is a very important (element); it allows that countries are better off," Valenzuela said. He added that what Colombia and Venezuela need is more trade.

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WASHINGTON, D.C.
{02-24-2010}

WASHINGTON CONCERNED ABOUT VENEZUELA'S ARM PURCHASES 
EFE

FRANK MORA, THE US DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS, reiterated his concern over the purchase of Russian weapons by Venezuela. At the same time, he dismissed claims that Obama's Administration is interested in deploying US soldiers at this time in other Latin American countries.

"Yes, we are concerned by (arms purchases made by Venezuela). This is why transparency and the mechanisms to support mutual confidence are so important," Mora said in an interview published by Nicaraguan newspaper El Nuevo Diario, in Managua, reported by Efe.

The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense said that at the present time there is no arms race in Latin America. However, he recognized that there is "danger" and a "possibility" of a military buildup in the region.

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{02-24-2010}

RCTV CHAIRMAN LAUNCHES NEW PRIVATE TV CHANNEL
EL UNIVERSAL

MARCEL GRANIER, THE CEO OF EMPRESAS 1BC, said in a press conference on Monday that, for the sake of the audience, private TV station RCTV Internacional cannot throw in the towel.

Thus, Granier announced the creation of a new TV network called RCTV Mundo, which will operate at the same time as RCTV Internacional. "This is a new challenge for the country and for democracy," he said.

The goal is to broadcast national audiovisual production through RCTV Internacional, which accepted "under protest" to be described as a national audiovisual producer, as determined by the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel). Meanwhile, RCTV Mundo will seek to gain a foothold in the international market.

Granier added that so far there is no legal restriction to launch RCTV Mundo. He added that 1BC will accept government's description of RCTV Internacional as a national audiovisual producer pending a series of lawsuits and injunctions filed with the Constitutional Chamber, Supreme Tribunal of Justice.

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{02-23-2010}

CHÁVEZ RAILS ON POLAR AGAIN
EL UNIVERSAL

VENEZUELA'S DICTATOR HUGO CHÁVEZ on Friday threatened Lorenzo Mendoza, the CEO of Polar holding, and said that he could order shutdown if the corporation fails to supply foodstuffs to Bicentenario hypermarkets, formerly Éxito.

"I was reading somewhere that the private enterprise refused to provide Bicentenario hypermarket with foodstuffs. Well, then, I will go for them also," the president said.

"Mind you, Mendoza! If you continue behaving like that, I can make a decision that you will not like at all. I am positive. With respect to the whole Polar, I have no problem. So, revise yourself and revise your people," Chávez boasted.

"I have been informed that some Polar managers are putting obstacles to provide Bicentenario hypermarkets with foodstuffs. Well, Mr. Mendoza, I am not saying that it is you; I will give you the benefit of the doubt," he added.

"Beware, Mendoza. I have granted Polar many things. Mr. Mendoza, don't you dare to go back to your old way. Remember that when Polar closed the corn flour manufacturing plant, when they closed the beer factory, I did not mind (…) but food, remember. That was Polar, Polar company."

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WASHINGTON, D.C.
{02-22-2010}

ALEXANDER M. HAIG, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE,  FOUR STAR ARMY GENERAL AND DEAR FRIEND OF CAMCO, DIED  AT 85
AGENCIAS

ALEXANDER M. HAIG, the four star Army general who served three Republican presidents, including a stint as secretary of state, died Saturday of complications from an infection. He was 85 and surrounded by family in his last hours.

Haig, who held top White House posts under presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, launched his own candidacy for president in 1988, but his campaign never took off and Republicans chose George H.W. Bush.

In 1963, after the return of the members of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy selected the then Lieutenant colonel Haig  to coordinate a special military program for the Cuban veterans.  Haig  was  assisted at the Pentagon by the second in command of the Cuban exile  brigade, Erneido Oliva, today, a retired major general and CAMCO Chairman.

President Obama, in a statement, said "General Haig exemplified our finest warrior-diplomat tradition of those who dedicate their lives to public service. He enjoyed a remarkable and decorated career, rising to beocome a four-star general and serving as Supreme Allied Commander of Europe before also serving as secretary of state.

Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.  Haig died about 1:30 a.m. at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

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WASHINGTON, D.C.
{02-20-2010}

EX-US SECRETARY OF STATE ALEXANDER HAIG CRITICALLY ILL  
AGENCIAS

FORMER US SECRETARY OF STATE ALEXANDER HAIG, 85, is critically ill in Baltimore’s John Hopkins hospital, a spokesman says. He was admitted on 28 January, but the Hospital did not specify his illness.

In 1963, after the return of the members of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy selected the then Lieutenant colonel Haig  to coordinate a special military program for the Cuban veterans. Haig was  assisted at the Pentagon by the second in command of the Cuban exile  brigade, Erneido Oliva, today, a retired major general and CAMCO Chairman.

General Haig  was presidential adviser to President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s.

President Ronald Reagan appointed him secretary of state. He famously said "I'm in charge here" after the attempted assassination of Mr Reagan.  In fact, several other officials were ahead of him in the hierarchy.

The four-star general and NATO supreme allied commander ran for president in 1988.

Under President Nixon he was appointed White House chief of staff in 1973. He helped the president prepare his impeachment defence in July 1974.

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KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
{02-18-2010}

A LOOK AT NATO COMBAT RULES IN AFGHANISTAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

THE BASICS ON NATO RULES OF ENGAGEMENT FOR COMBAT IN AFGHANISTAN:

THE RULES: Under new guidelines, NATO troops are not allowed to fire at the enemy without making a "positive identification" and seeing evidence "of hostile intent." In practice, that means they can't shoot if they don't see the enemy physically carrying a gun or they personally see him drop one.

Some troops say it handicaps their ability to fight because an insurgent firing from inside a house could then lay down his weapon and walk out unarmed without being shot at.

WHY THEY WERE CHANGED: It was public outrage in Afghanistan over civilian deaths that prompted the top NATO commander, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, last year to tighten the rules, including curbs on the use of airstrikes and other weaponry if civilians are at risk.

BACKGROUND: Afghan civilian deaths soared to 2,412 civilians last year - the highest number in any year of the 8-year-old war, according to a U.N. report. But the deaths attributed to allied troops dropped nearly 30 percent as a result of McChrystal's new rules, according to the report.

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TEHRAN, IRAN
{02-17-2010]

AHMADINEJAD: IRAN INSTALLING ADVANCED ENRICHMENT CENTRIFUGES
ASSOCIATED PRESS

IRAN'S PRESIDENT SAYS HIS COUNTRY IS INSTALLING MORE ADVANCED CENTRIFUGES AT ITS MAIN URANIUM ENRICHMENT FACILITY, a step certain to add to international concern over Tehran's accelerating nuclear program.

Iran announced a week ago that it was enriching uranium to a higher level for use in fueling a reactor that produces medical isotopes. The new enrichment work is of major concern to the U.S. and its allies because at higher levels the material can be used in nuclear warheads.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a news conference the new centrifuges are not yet operational but are five times more efficient than an earlier model at its Natanz enrichment plant.

Iran says its nuclear work is only for peaceful purposes.

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{02-16-2010}

VENEZUELA FINDS DOZENS OF SUSPECTED DRUG PLANES
ASSOCIATED PRESS

AUTHORITIES HAVE DISCOVERED 28 AIRPLANES in central Venezuela that were presumably being used by drug traffickers.

A security official from central Guarico state says the planes were found inside a hangar on the outskirts of El Sombrero. The town is located in a rural area about 143 miles (230 kilometers) from Caracas.

Hedy Ramirez told the state-run ABN news agency on Sunday that federal police and National Guard troops have taken control of the hangar and impounded the planes while investigations proceed.

The planes are mostly small aircraft typically used by drug runners.

Venezuela is a major hub for traffickers smuggling Colombian cocaine to the United States and Europe.

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{02-15-2010}

VENEZUELA DECLARES EMERGENCY AMID ENERGY CRISIS
EL UNIVERSAL

EL DICTADOR HUGO CHAVEZ has signed a decree declaring an energy emergency in Venezuela to facilitate his government's efforts to ease severe energy shortages.

Venezuela imposed electricity and water rationing in December to prevent a collapse of the electricity grid as severe drought drops water levels behind the Guri Dam to critical lows. The dam supplies most of Venezuela's electricity.

Energy Minister Ali Rodriguez says the government must accelerate plans to reduce energy consumption while boosting production. Chavez signed the emergency decree Monday.

################################################

SANTIAGO  DE CHILE, CHILE
{02-13-2010}

CHILE REPLACES VENEZUELA AS COLOMBIA'S SECOND LARGEST TRADE PARTNER
EL UNIVERSAL

CHILE BECAME THE SECOND MAIN DESTINATION OF COLOMBIAN EXPORTS, according to data recorded in January, thus replacing Venezuela, which traditionally held that position according to data released by Colombia's National Tax and Customs Agency (DIAN), published on Thursday by La República, a local newspaper.

The Minister of Finance, Oscar Iván Zuluaga, said that "(Colombian exports) to Venezuela declined by 76 percent compared to the same month in 2009." This means that Colombian exports to its neighboring country have dropped from USD 387.5 million in January 2009 to USD 92.1 million in the same month this year.

Although President Hugo Chávez decided to freeze trade relations with Colombia, the latter country is still exporting to Venezuela products such as baby diapers, natural gas, candies, soap and toilet paper.

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BOGOTA, COLOMBIA
{02-12-2010}

VENEZUELA REPLACES COLOMBIAN IMPORTS WITH US GOODS
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MAGDALENA PARDO, THE PRESIDENT OF THE COLOMBIAN-VENEZUELAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, complained hat the Venezuelan government is purchasing meat products, footwear, textiles and clothes, pharmaceuticals and edible oils from the United States to replace products previously imported from Colombia.

Pardo said in an interview with the Colombian financial newspaper La República that President Hugo Chávez "is replacing" products made by Colombian companies with goods manufactured in the US "empire."

"It is contradictory that Chávez Administration claims to make business with friendly countries and is replacing Colombian products with imports from the United States," the Colombian businesswoman said.

Apart from the United States, Venezuela is purchasing products from China, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador instead of Colombia, Efe reported.

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{02-12-2010}

ELECTRICITY EXPERT QUESTIONS EFFECTIVENESS OF MEASURES TO ADDRESS ENERGY CRISIS
EL UNIVERSAL

GUILLERMO OVALLES, the former president of Venezuelan electricity distribution company Elecentro and current president of the Commission on Electric Power of the Venezuelan Federation of Trade and Industry Chambers (Fedecámaras) urged the Executive branch of government to sit and work on a plan for electricity rationing in Caracas, because - in his view - a plan must be quickly implemented to address the power crisis which will worsen if the rainy season does not begin between May and June, as expected.

Ovalles considers that the recent announcements made by Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, among them the decision to punish energy users who could increase the demand of energy, are not the solution.

The Venezuelan businessman considers that the government was not properly advised as to the power loss from illegal electricity connections, which amount to 40 percent, and are caused especially by people who do not pay for the service and due to buildings without electricity meters.

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{02-12-2010}

RESIGNATION OF HEALTH MINISTER IS CONFIRMED
EL UNIVERSAL

MINISTER CARLOS ROTONDARO quit the Ministry of Health on Wednesday morning, internal sources of the Executive Office confirmed.

It was disclosed that at midday, the staff was advised to draft the cutoff records, deliver the materials and submit the plans in preparation for the incoming minister.

It was also known off the records that Rotondaro took decision for being at odds with the involvement of Cubans in strategic positions at the Ministry of Health and hospitals.

His decision did not take the ministry's employees unawares, as rumors went round since last October. Luis La Grecca, Health Director in Lara state, and Chief of Staff Luis Reyes Reyes are top in the list of the substitutes.

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* MURDERS IN VENEZUELA
* MORATINOS BACKS JUDGE VELASCO, AZNAR
* PANAMÁ TRUSTS IN OAS REGARDING VENEZUELA
* PEOPLE'S PARTY: SPAIN MUST BREAK WITH...
* ‘INVINCIBLE’ TALEBAN ROUTED IN RAIDS ON ...
* CHILE'S QUAKE MANY TIMES MORE POWERFUL ...
* COLOMBIA'S DEFENSE MINISTER SAYS THAT URIBE...
* COLOMBIAN COMMISSION TRAVELS TO VENEZUELA...
* FORMER DIRECTOR OF GLOBOVISIÓN CONFIRMS...
* COLOMBIAN GOVERNOR: FARC LEADER IS HIDING IN... * BELIEVEIT OR NOT: CUBA ASKS ITS MULES TO...
* ARGENTINA GRANTS ITSELF POWER TO BLOCKADE...
* LEBANESE TROOPS OPEN FIRE ON ISRAELI WAR...
* MODERATE QUAKE HITS EASTERN CUBA
* POLL: VENEZUELA IN A CRITICAL SITUATION
* US CUBA BROADCASTS WORK WITH VOA SPANISH...
* U.S. ARMY LAUNCHES ATTACK ON TALIBAN...

CARACAS, VENEZUELA {03-10-2010} MURDERS IN VENEZUELA EL UNIVERSAL THE VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT DOES NOT PROVIDE OVERALL FIGURES ABOUT VIOLENCE, BUT ACCORDING TO UNOFFICIAL DATA, AT THE END OF 2009, a total of 16.047 people were killed in compared to 14,800 in 2008 and 4,500 people in 1998. In Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, there were 140 murders per 100,000 people in 2009, compared to 18 murders per 100,000 people in Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia. "Chávez has the idea that his revolution must break down structures. He keeps thinking that violence is also a class struggle, a conflict of poor against rich people. But in Venezuela, poor people are killing poor people," Roberto Briceño-León, director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (OVV), told AFP. The OVV provides figures on insecurity. "Right now, people in Venezuela have no reason not to steal or rob and the government thinks that by hiding figures it can create an illusory sense of security," Briceño León added. ############################################## MADRID, SPAIN {03-09-2010} MORATINOS BACKS JUDGE VELASCO, AZNAR EL UNIVERSAL SPANISH MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS MIGUEL ÁNGEL MORATINOS expressed on Monday his support to Judge Eloy Velasco of the Spanish National Court, and also to former of government José María Aznar, previously lambasted by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro. The senior officer also reported on the delivery to Caracas of the Judge's indictment related to Basque terrorist group ETA and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC). Moratinos told Efe that both the judiciary and the head of government are two institutions that count on the "maximum support" of the Spanish Executive branch of government. In this way, the Spanish FM replied to the comments made by his Venezuelan counterpart, who said that Judge Velasco was linked with Aznar's "mafia." ############################################# PANAMA CITY, PANAMA {03-06-2010} PANAMÁ TRUSTS IN OAS REGARDING VENEZUELA ASSOCIATED PRESS PANAMANIAN AMBASSADOR GUILLERMO COCHEZ HIGHLIGHTED THE "COURAGE" OF HIS ARGENTINEAN COUNTERPART RODOLFO GIL, who "did not let Venezuelan Ambassador Roy Chaderton intimidate him," when supporting the work of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Cochez noted that nobody can disregard the IACHR work of commitment to democracy. He voiced support to the IACHR Secretary Santiago Cantón, whom Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez called "pure excrement." For the diplomat, such insults make him wonder "how can somebody in representation of a government use those expressions for defense? When such defense goes out to the public, all that they do is denigrating the country." He said that while the Venezuelan government has not allowed the visit to Venezuela of an IACHR delegation, citizens are not unarmed, because "the change that has happened in the world towards Venezuela is very positive, for protection of human rights." "I am very confident in what is happening at the OAS. Yesterday (on Wednesday), I like very much the speech delivered by the Argentinean ambassador," Cochez told Unión Radio. ############################################# MADRID, SPAIN {03-04-2010} PEOPLE'S PARTY: SPAIN MUST BREAK WITH VENEZUELA EL UNIVERSAL THE PEOPLE'S PARTY (PP), the main opposition party in Spain, considers that if the probe confirms that Hugo Chávez's administration supported the Basque separatist group ETA, the Spanish Executive should convene "immediately" its ambassador and "seriously consider the possibility of breaking relations" with Venezuela. María Dolores de Cospedal, the Secretary General of PP, made these statements when she referred to the accusation made by the Spanish National Court Judge Eloy Velasco, who said that the Venezuelan government collaborated with the terrorist group ETA and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), a guerrilla group to establish an alliance, Efe reported. "It would be a very serious issue," said the Conservative leader in an interview with the Spanish radio station Punto Radio. ############################################## PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN {03-02-2010} ‘INVINCIBLE’ TALEBAN ROUTED IN RAIDS ON BORDER CAMPS ANTHONY LOYD // ASSOCIATED PRESS SIGNIFICANT LEADERS OF THE PAKISTANI TALEBAN HAVE BEEN KILLED OR CAPTURED in an onslaught of frontier ground and air attacks, a Pakistani general has told The Times. “The militant command and control centres and their caches have been dismantled or captured,” said Major-General Tariq Khan, one of the country’s most experienced commanders in the frontier war with the Taleban. “The kind of hits the leadership has taken, the casualties they have taken, the TTP [Pakistani Taleban] is no longer significant,” he said. “It has ended as a cohesive force. It doesn’t exist any more as an umbrella organisation that can influence militancy anywhere.” The claims come at a time of improved military co-operation between America and Pakistan, in which US drones have killed a number of key Pakistani Taleban commanders, and Pakistani security agents have arrested at least four senior Afghan Taleban leaders over the past month. It was no coincidence that two US special forces soldiers waited in a courtyard near the general’s office in the Bala Hisar fortress in Peshawar. “The [US] Socom Special Ops Group has a few liaison officers with me,” General Khan said. “They iron out the issues on the border during combat.” ############################################# CONCEPCION, CHILE {03-01-2010} CHILE'S QUAKE MANY TIMES MORE POWERFUL THAN HAITI'S FRED TASKER "THIS WAS A BIG ONE. A REALLY BIG ONE,'' said Dr. Tim Dixon, geophysics professor at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Miami, speaking of the magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck near Chile Saturday morning. There would be no connection between the quake in Haiti and the one in Chile, since they involve different fault lines. Nor is it a harbinger of increased seismic activity around the globe -- except in Chile, which can expect aftershocks for days to come. Sometimes earthquakes, like hurricanes, come in bunches, after periods of quiet. How thunderous is 8.8 quake on the Richter scale? The energy released is between 500 and 900 times that of the magnitude 7.0 quake that hit Haiti on Jan. 12, he said. On the complex scale that measures earthquakes, an 8.0 quake releases 30 times the energy of a 7.0, and a 9.0 would release 30 times that, meaning 900 times more energy. An 8.8 would be somewhat less, Dixon said. The amount of damage quakes cause depends in large part on the kinds of soils in which they take place, how close they are to populated areas and whether buildings have been put up to withstand earthquakes. Saturday's earthquake near Chile took place along the ``Peru-Chile Trench''fault line that runs the length of South America about 80 miles offshore. It runs north past Central America and about halfway up Mexico, Dixon said. It's part of the boundary between two massive tectonic plates -- the Nazca plate in the Pacific Ocean and the South American plate. The earth is divided into about a dozen big plates that constantly shift against each other, occasionally causing earthquakes. In Haiti, the earthquake was on the Baranquillo fault line that starts in Jamaica and runs east through Haiti and into the Dominican Republic. It is a lateral fault, with two plates moving past each other side-to-side causing mostly lateral shaking in a quake. In Chile, the quake was on a ``thrust fault,'' with the Pacific Ocean's Nazca plate diving down under the South American plate over geologic eons. The fault line is at the surface about 80 miles offshore. It then dives down under the continent, and is about 80 miles down by the time it runs underneath the Chilean capital of Santiago. The farther down an earthquake occurs, the less damage it does on the surface, he said. The offshore quake has ruptured part but not all of the fault zone, increasing pressure on the rest of the fault line and increasing the chances of another quake under Santiago or elsewhere up and down the Chilean coast. More than 20 aftershocks have hit near Chile since the big earthquake Saturday morning, one as big as magnitude 6.9, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. “The next few days will have significant aftershocks,'' Dixon says. ``A 7.0 like the one in Haiti is certainly possible in Chile,'' he said. More aftershocks also are probable up and down Chile's coast. Dixon stressed that there is no connection between the Haiti and Chile quakes. “Somewhere in the world we get a 7.0 quake about once a month. An 8.8 is much rarer. We might get about one a year.'' The good news is that the Chile quake does not increase chances of another big quake near Haiti. “They're too far apart, and there's no direct connection in the fault lines,'' Dixon said. It also does not increase the likelihood of a big quake on the San Andreas fault that runs alongside California, he said. Since the big Jan. 12 quake, Haiti has experienced more than 60 aftershocks ranging up to magnitude 5.9. The aftershocks have been decreasing in size and frequency. But the fact that the quake near Port-au-Prince ruptured only part of the fault line along which it runs already had increased the risk of another big quake even closer to Port-au-Prince. ############################################## BOGOTA, COLOMBIA {02-27-2010} COLOMBIA'S DEFENSE MINISTER SAYS THAT URIBE SCOLDED HIM FOR TALKING ABOUT VENEZUELA EL UNIVERSAL GABRIEL SILVA, THE COLOMBIAN MINISTER OF DEFENSE, said that President Álvaro Uribe scolded him for criticizing the establishment of a "peasant militia" in Venezuela. Silva said that although his statements were "inconvenient" they are "true." "President Uribe talked with me and scolded me for talking about Venezuela. My statements may have been inconvenient, but they are true," said the top government official in an interview published by the Colombian newspaper El Espectador. Uribe disavowed on Monday statements by his Defense Minister who expressed concern over Venezuela's "peasant militia." Silva warned against the risk that the weapons carried by such militias may be used by "criminals, terrorists, drug traffickers and criminal gangs" in Colombia. Minister Silva said in the interview that the military agreement with the United States has already come into force. This agreement made that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez froze diplomatic and commercial relations with Colombia. ############################################ BOGOTA, COLOMBIA {02-24-2010} COLOMBIAN COMMISSION TRAVELS TO VENEZUELA TO ADDRESS POWER CRISIS EL UNIVERSAL A COLOMBIAN COMMISSION ON ENERGY traveled on Monday to Venezuela to hold negotiations on the sale of electricity to its neighbor country, government sources said in Bogotá. The commission includes representatives of the Colombian Ministry of Mines and Energy, the Commission for Energy and Gas Regulation (Creg) and Isagen (a state-run power generation and marketing company), said Hernán Martínez, the Colombian Minister of Mines and Energy. Martínez said in an interview with Bogotá's radio station La FM that there is a sales agreement between Venezuela and Isagen, which is still in force and "would facilitate smooth negotiations," Efe reported. Under the contract, Colombia provided electricity to Venezuela until last December, when the Colombian Ministry of Mines suspended exports of electricity due to the effects of the dry season. The Minister said that Colombia could sell electricity to Venezuela for "several months." ############################################# CARACAS, VENEZUELA {02-21-2010} FORMER DIRECTOR OF GLOBOVISIÓN CONFIRMS PRESSURES TO SELL THE TV STATION ASSOCIATED PRESS ALBERTO FEDERICO RAVELL, A SHAREHOLDER AND FORMER DIRECTOR OF GLOBOVISIÓN, a private TV news network, confirmed that before he resigned there were plans to sell the TV channel, and added that there were pressures for the removal of Leopoldo Castillo, the host of the TV show "Aló Ciudadano." Ravell said that by resigning from his position as director of Globovisión, he achieved his goals: the TV channel was not sold; Leopoldo Castillo returned to the TV station, and the editorial stance of Globovisión did not change at all. During a press conference, Ravell said that banker Nelson Mezerhane, one of the shareholders of the TV channel, offered him and Guillermo Zuloaga to buy their shares because he had made an agreement with Ministers Alí Rodríguez Araque and Nelson Merentes. Ravell said that this situation should be clarified. The former director of Globovisión said that the owners of the TV station could not sell it without consulting its employees. ############################################## BOGOTA, COLOMBIA {02-20-2010} COLOMBIAN GOVERNOR: FARC LEADER IS HIDING IN VENEZUELA ASSOCIATED PRESS LUIS EDUARDO ATAYA, the governor of the Colombian department of Arauca, a member of the Cambio Radical political party, said on Friday that he has reports showing that Germán Briceño Suárez, also known as "Grannobles," a FARC guerrilla leader, is hiding in Venezuela. "We have received several reports according to which Grannobles is in the town of Elorza (Venezuela)," Ataya said in an interview with the Colombian TV station Caracol Noticias, Efe reported. The governor added that the guerrilla leader, who heads the Eastern Bloc of FARC, "is settled in the town of Elorza." According to Colombian media, including weekly magazine Semana, Grannobles is mainly dedicated to cocaine trafficking in Venezuela. Apparently, Briceño is not following orders from the central command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). ############################################### HAVANA, CUBA {02-19-2010} BELIEVE IT OR NOT: CUBA ASKS ITS MULES TO RAISE A HOOF AND BE COUNTED ASSOCIATED PRESS WILL ALL CUBAN MULES PLEASE STAND UP? Or at least raise a hoof or two. The communist government says it is facing a major mule deficit and has commissioned a census of the beasts of burden to determine how bad the problem is. How many mules are in Cuba is unknown - hence the need for the census. But authorities tell the government news agency AIN that the island may be facing a deficit of 8,000 in highlands areas alone. The agency praised the animals as "very important for the transportation of food in mountainous areas." Officials will carry out the census between March 1 and 10. ############################################# BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA {02-17-2010} ARGENTINA GRANTS ITSELF POWER TO BLOCKADE FALKLAND ISLANDS ASSOCIATED PRESS ARGENTINA ANNOUNCED TODAY it would to take control over all shipping between its coast and the Falkand Islands, effectively awarding itself the power to blockade the disputed British territory. The announcement that all boats sailing through the waters claimed by Argentina must hold a government permit looks set to deepen a row over conflicting claims to oil beds lying inside the Falklands’ waters. Argentina still claims sovereignty over the islands it knows as “Las Malvinas,” nearly three decades after the end of the Falklands War in which over 1,000 people died. Tensions over the islands remained buried until the discovery of potentially rich energy reserves in the Falklands seabed. Argentina protested to Britain earlier this month over plans to begin offshore exploration drilling near the remote islands. Today’s announcement amounts to an Argentinian move to control all traffic from South America towards the islands, including an oil rig due to begin drilling by early next year. “Any boat that wants to travel between ports on the Argentine mainland to the Islas Malvinas, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands ... must first ask for permission from the Argentine government,” Anibal Fernandez, the Argentinian cabinet chief said. He said a presidential decree would force all ships bound for the islands or traveling through waters claimed by Argentina to secure the new permit. ############################################# BEIRUT, LEBANON {02-16-2010} LEBANESE TROOPS OPEN FIRE ON ISRAELI WARPLANES ASSOCIATED PRESS LEBANESE TROOPS opened fire Sunday on four Israeli warplanes that flew into Lebanese airspace, the army said. Israeli warplanes frequently fly over Lebanese territory in what Israel says are reconnaissance missions. The overflights have been a constant source of friction between the two countries. Sunday's incident comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East following some of the sharpest exchanges in years between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Last week, Syria's foreign minister accused Israel of "spreading an atmosphere of war" in the region after Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that the stalled peace process with Syria could result in an all-out regional war. The Lebanese army said in a statement that its troops used anti-aircraft fire Sunday to force the Israeli warplanes out of Lebanese airspace. The army said the planes were in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley in central Lebanon. A spokesman for the Israeli military declined to comment. ############################################# HAVANA, CUBA {02-13-2010} MODERATE QUAKE HITS EASTERN CUBA ASSOCIATED PRESS A MAGNITUDE-5.4 EARTHQUAKE HIT EASTERN CUBA EARLY FRIDAY, rattling nerves but causing no reported injuries or damage. The temblor hit just after 7 a.m. Friday, centered about 35 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of Baracoa, near the easternmost tip of the island, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That is just 160 miles (255 kilometers) from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where a Jan. 12 quake destroyed much of the city and killed countless thousands. "Yes we felt it. We felt it strong," said Maira Legra, whose son runs a home offering lodging to tourists in the colonial beach-side city of Baracoa. "There was no problem. I was in bed because it was early, but I didn't get up." ############################################## CARACAS, VENEZUELA {02-12-2010} POLL: VENEZUELA IN A CRITICAL SITUATION EL UNIVERSAL THE POWER CRISIS CAN TAKE ITS TOLL ON DICTATOR HUGO CHÁVEZ. According to Venezuelan pollster Vicente León, director of polling firm Datanálisis, the measures to be implemented by the government to address the power generation crisis in an election year will impact directly on the popular support of the Head of State. Although León did not provide the current levels of popularity of the Venezuelan leader, he said that his steady decline in polls has continued. León said that from the economic point of view, the presidential decree declaring state of emergency in the electric sector, which according to the pollster was implemented later than expected, "will create some restrictions that will bring about stagnation and economic recession." He said that 66.6 percent of Venezuelan people believe that their country is in a critical situation. As a result, Hugo Chávez popularity is declining. However, León noted that this does not mean that Chávez is defeated. "I am not saying that he was knocked out." I am saying that the Venezuelan President, whose popularity reached 70 percent in 2006, is clearly below 50 percent and the downward trend continues. ############################################## MIAMI, FLORIDA {02-11-2010} US CUBA BROADCASTS WORK WITH VOA SPANISH SERVICE LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ // ASSOCIATED PRESS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT'S CUBA BROADCAST AND ITS SEMIAUTONOMOUS VOICE OF AMERICA ARE FOR THE FIRST TIME REGULARLY SHARING RESOURCES. Officials hope the change will enhance both services. Last week, Radio Marti opened its Miami studios to the VOA to produce a regular half hour radio program with news and analysis from around the hemisphere. VOA's Spanish-language service director says Miami's proximity to Latin America provides talent and resources not as accessible in Washington. VOA has stringers but no bureaus south of the Rio Grande. The VOA is also using Miami as a base to report on the Haitian earthquake. Still, some officials question whether the move is a back door way to reduce the Cuba broadcasts. ############################################ KABUL, AFGHANISTAN {02-09-2010} U.S. ARMY LAUNCHES ATTACK ON TALIBAN STRONGHOLD IN AFGHANISTAN ASSOCIATED PRESS U.S. ARMY SOLDIERS LAUNCHED A MAJOR OPERATION Tuesday in support of a planned U.S.-Afghan attack on the largest Taliban-controlled town in southern Afghanistan. NATO and Afghan officials, meanwhile, urged militants holding Marjah, where an offensive is expected, to lay down their arms and warned civilians there to "keep your heads down." About 400 U.S. troops from the 5th Stryker Brigade as well as 250 Afghan soldiers and their 30 Canadian trainers moved into positions northeast of the town. No casualties were reported. Large plumes of smoke could be seen in the area, and reporters traveling with the U.S. unit could hear the distant rattle of 50-caliber machine gun fire and detonations from MK-19s, which fire 40 millimeter grenades from Stryker vehicles. U.S. officials have not said when the main attack on the town of some 80,000 people will take place but have nonetheless heavily publicized plans to attack, causing hundreds of people to flee the opium-producing center in advance of the fighting. On Tuesday, however, Taliban militants prevented townspeople from leaving Marjah, as families huddled inside their homes, witnesses said. The offensive will be the first major one since President Barack Obama announced he was sending 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan. ############################################## CARACAS, VENEZUELA {02-10-2010} HUGO CHAVEZ TAKES TO THE AIRWAVES EL UNIVERSAL VENEZUELAN DICTATOR HUGO CHÁVEZ has launched his latest radio venture, a programme called Suddenly with Chavez in which he can take to the airwaves any time of the day or night. Heralded by the Venezuelan Government as a “communicational guerrilla” in its battle to advance the country's Bolivarian revolution, the new show on state radio has no schedule and can be broadcast whenever Mr Chávez desires. Inaugurating the new show yesterday, the President said that the programme could surprise viewers “at midnight or at dawn", ############################################## CARACAS, VENEZUELA {02-09-2010} HUGO CHAVEZ ORDERS EXPROPRIATION OF HISTORIC BUILDINGS EL UNIVERSAL VENEZUELAN DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ has ordered the expropriation of several historic buildings in the main square in the capital, Caracas. The buildings include a former residence of the country's 19th Century independence hero, Simon Bolivar. The president said the move was part of an effort to preserve Venezuela's national heritage. The order is likely to please and anger Venezuelans in equal measures, says the BBC's Will Grant in Caracas. President Chavez's instructions to take over several buildings came during an impromptu tour of the square from where he was presenting his weekly television programme, Alo Presidente. Historic legacy "What's that building? Wasn't it once a theatre?" Mr Chavez asked the mayor of Caracas, Jorge Rodriguez, who was accompanying him. Reassured that the state theatre was already in state hands, Mr Chavez turned his attention to the building next door, which he was told was now owned by a jeweller. "Expropriate it," he said. Mr Chavez also ordered that another building, once occupied by Simon Bolivar, pass into state hands, as well as a number of other sites of historic interest. "It is not possible that these buildings, which so much history, with such a legacy of our forefathers, be in the hands of retailers. This belongs to all Venezuelans, it is a historic centre that we should rescue," Mr Chavez said. The BBC's Will Grant says those who support Mr Chavez will see the expropriations as rightly putting important symbols of national heritage under state protection. Those who oppose the president are likely to see it as a step further towards total state control of private property. ############################################# TEHRAN, IRAN {02-07-2010} REPORT: IRAN OPENS TWO MISSILE PLANTS CNN THE INAUGURATION OF THE PRODUCTION LINES FOR THE ANTI-HELICOPTER QAEM MISSILE, and the anti-armor Toofan-5 (Hurricane) missile, came three days after Iran test-launched a rocket capable of carrying a satellite, a launch deemed a "provocative act" by Washington. The Defense Ministry told Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency that both missiles have "high penetration and destructive powers." By mass producing and delivering these modern arms, Iran's department of defense aims to increase its ground and air defenses, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. The announcement of new missile production coincided with a 10-day period marking the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah. "Toofan 5 is one of the most advanced missiles. It has two warheads which can destroy tanks and other armored vehicles," Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi told Fars. The Qaem is a "missile which can destroy targets in the air traveling at low speed and at low altitude, especially assault helicopters," Vahidi added. The laser guided anti-helicopter Qaem rocket is designed to resist enemy actions in electronic warfare. ############################################## CARACAS, VENEZUELA {02-06-2010} VENEZUELAN BISHOP URGES PEOPLE TO BUILD A NATIONAL UNDERSTANDING EL UNIVERSAL MONSIGNOR OVIDIO PÉREZ MORALES, the former president of the Venezuelan Plenary Council and member of the Venezuelan Conference of Bishops made a call for peace, understanding and dialogue following the protests and threats made in recent weeks. Pérez Morales believes that the country can not continue "splitting" and "self-destructing" because Venezuela can not progress if it is divided into "two parts" and with permanent confrontations. In his view, it is necessary to rebuild coexistence, regardless of whether the parties involved do not share the same political ideology. "People do not have to abandon their convictions, but to establish a compassionate communication and reach a minimum of national understanding," the Archbishop told El Universal during an interview. ############################################# TEHRAN, IRAN {02-04-2010} IRAN TO HANG NINE MORE OVER ELECTION UNREST REUTERS IRAN said on Tuesday it would soon hang nine more rioters over the unrest that erupted after the June presidential vote, and the leader of the opposition said such repression showed the 1979 Islamic revolution had failed. "Nine others will be hanged soon. The nine, and the two who were hanged on Thursday, were surely arrested in the recent riots and had links to anti-revolutionary groups," said senior judiciary official Ebrahim Raisi, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. The two men hanged last week were among a group of 11 people sentenced to death on charges including "waging war against God" and being members of armed groups. is involved in the Darkhovin oilfield. ############################################# MIAMI, FLORIDA {02-03-2010} WALESA: AS SUPERPOWER, US LACKS MORAL LEADERSHIP ASSOCIATED PRESS FORMER POLISH PRESIDENT LECH WALESA SAYS AS THE LAST SUPERPOWER, the U.S. needs to take a stronger moral stand when it comes to communism. Walesa told a group of more than 300 Cuban-Americans Tuesday the U.S. leads the world militarily but that tanks and guns are not enough to overthrow communist governments. The Nobel Prize winner spoke at a benefit for the privately funded, Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, which sends aid to political dissidents in Cuba. Congress requested more than $20 million in 2009 to help strengthen civil society in Cuba. But its program faces challenges. The Cuban government recently detained one of its subcontractors, and congressional reviews have questioned how much of the money is reaching dissidents on the island. ############################################## CARACAS, VENEZUELA {02-02-2010} CHÁVEZ: BLACKOUTS AT BASEBALL PARK WERE SABOTAGE EL UNIVERSAL VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT ordered Minister of the Interior and Justice Tarek El Aissami to monitor closely the security measures that have been taken in Margarita Island for the baseball Caribbean Series. Hugo Chávez said that "evidence shows that the two power blackouts occurred during the final series of Venezuelan baseball league were sabotage." "We have no definite evidence, but all clues point to the fact that the two blackouts occurred in the ninth inning of the games that took place in the José Bernardo Pérez baseball park, in the city of Valencia, with a crowded stadium, were sabotage, particularly the power blackout occurred in the last game in Valencia (On Friday, January 29)," Chávez said. The Venezuelan President recalled that his administration "will turn 11 years" on February 2. He announced several events to commemorate the anniversary, as well as the 18 years of the failed coup attempt he led on February 4, 1992. Chávez also accused the Venezuelan oligarchy of supporting any "lie made up by Colombia." The Venezuelan president denied that Juan Gómez, a Sergeant of the Venezuelan National Guard, was arrested and expelled from Colombia because he was allegedly carrying out covert operations in Venezuela's neighboring country. ############################################# MOSCOW, RUSSIA {02-01-2010} THOUSANDS RALLY TO URGE RUSSIA'S PUTIN TO RESIGN REUTERS UP TO 10,000 PEOPLE rallied in the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad Saturday demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin over living costs and unemployment, a rare show of anger with the popular figure. Boris Nemtsov, a leader of opposition movement Solidarity, told Echo Moskvy radio people were protesting against a "25-30 percent" rise in utility bills and against high unemployment. He said the rally was organized by political parties, including the Communists. "I believe this is a precursor to events likely to roll out over Russia," he said. Russian authorities traditionally increase bills for housing, transportation, water and electricity after the New Year. This can stoke inflation which reached 1.7 percent for the first 25 days of January, exceeding official forecasts. Despite signs of improvement, Russia remains mired in an economic crisis, with GDP contracting 8.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier and unemployment reaching 8.2 percent in December. The Russian government has poured billions of dollars into the economy and supporting crisis-hit regions and towns. Polls show Putin, the former president and a former intelligence officer, remains popular in Russia. A VTsIOM poll this month put his trust rating at 54 percent, the highest among politicians. President Dmitry Medvedev scored 42 percent. ##############################################

* A NEW POLL FINDS NO CLAMOR FOR CHANGE IN U.S. CUBA POLICY
* SUIT BY SPY'S EX-WIFE COULD STOP FLIGHTS TO CUBA
* ENCOURAGE CHANGE FROM WITHIN
* CUBA’S FOREIGN POLICY – THE LOGIC OF INTRANSIGENCE
* U.S. BROADCASTS TO CUBA GET STRONGER
* VENEZUELA HEADS TOWARD DISASTER
* SUPPORT FOR U.S. PROGRAMS THAT HELP CUBA RUNNING ON EMPTY
* STEPS TO TRANSITION OF POST-RAUL CASTRO CUBA ENVISIONED

MIAMI, FLORIDA {03-05-2010} A NEW POLL FINDS NO CLAMOR FOR CHANGE IN U.S. CUBA POLICY JUAN O. TAMAYO FORTY PERCENT OF AMERICANS SAY THE CUBA EMBARGO SHOULD REMAIN IN PLACE WHILE 36 PERCENT WANT IT ENDED, and nearly half say they wouldn't visit the island even if allowed, according to a BBC/Harris Poll released Tuesday. Nearly three in 10 Americans believe President Barack Obama's gestures toward Cuba have not been enough, 35 percent believe they went far enough and 10 percent say they went too far, the poll showed. The survey came as Congress considers several proposals to ease U.S. sanctions on Havana, including allowing unrestricted U.S. travel to the island and making it easier for Cuba to buy U.S. agricultural products. Harris Interactive said it surveyed 2,050 American adults online Jan. 13-15 for itself and the British Broadcasting Corp. Harris said it doesn't report margins of error because they can be misleading. While 23 percent of Americans said the Cuban government was an enemy of Washington, 63 percent said Havana is unfriendly but not an enemy, 12 percent said Cuba is a friend but not an ally and 2 percent believe Havana is “a close ally,'' the poll showed. Recalling the Bay of Pigs and missile crisis confrontations in the 1960s, the poll showed older Americans tend to hold more negative views than younger Americans. Thirty-five percent of those 55 and older believe Cuba is an enemy, while only 10 percent of those aged 18-34 agree. “Fifty years is a long time, but these findings suggest that at least for older people, memories of the Cuban Missile crisis last. Attitudes on many issues on Cuba are very different depending on if one is over or under 55 years old,'' Harris Interactive said. “One issue that is also splitting Americans is the embargo, as two in five (40 percent) say the embargo towards Cuba should remain in effect and 36 percent say it should not,'' the company added. “It's interesting that the Harris survey mirrors a lot of the dynamics we're seeing within the Cuban American community -- no mandate for a change in [U.S.] policy,'' said Fernand Amandi of Bendixen & Amandi, a Miami-based firm that regularly polls Cuban Americans. Forty-four percent of those surveyed said it was too early to restore normal relations with Cuba and 38 percent disagreed, while 75 percent said the U.S. relationship with the island is important and 25 percent said it's not. Nearly 50 percent said Obama should visit the island at some point in his presidency, while 25 percent said maybe he should visit after Fidel Castro dies and 26 percent said never, the poll showed. ###################################################################################################### MIAMI, FLORIDA {03-03-2010} SUIT BY SPY'S EX-WIFE COULD STOP FLIGHTS TO CUBA JUAN O. TAMAYO ALL DIRECT U.S. FLIGHTS TO CUBA MAY BE HALTED IF THE EX-WIFE OF A CUBAN SPY WINS A LAWSUIT TO GARNISH MONEY THAT SOUTH FLORIDA CHARTER COMPANIES PAY IN FEES TO CUBA, lawyers in the case said Monday. Ira Kurzban, attorney for the charterers, said he filed a motion Monday to dissolve the writs of garnish by Ana Margarita Martinez, and asked U.S. Judge Frederico Moreno for an emergency hearing. The eight charter companies, all based in South Florida, have stopped making payments to Cuba, he added. ``My clients are now in breach of contract, and Cuba can stop them landing any time.'' Martinez's suit could deal a blow to the Obama administration's efforts to increase people-to-people contacts with Cuba, and force Cuban-Americans to go through third countries to visit the island. An estimated 200 charter flights to Cuba leave monthly from Miami, New York, and Los Angeles carrying 20,000 passengers, industry experts said. The companies must pay Cuban agencies for landing rights, fuel, ground support, and other services. Charter-company and Cuban officials met in Havana last week to study the legal situation, and Havana decided to withhold a reaction until it determines how the legal case is moving, said a travel-industry member who declined to comment further because of the sensitivity of the case. “NOT A LONG SHOT' Martinez, the ex-wife of Cuban spy Juan Pablo Roque, filed the writs on Feb. 19 to seize those funds. Her attorney, Thomas Withrow of Indianapolis, said the move was ``not a sure shot at all, but also not a long shot.'' Her writs were the latest twist in the ongoing efforts to collect on the multi-million-dollar judgements that several people have won against Cuba in U.S. courts. Most of the Cuban funds frozen in U.S. accounts since the 1960s already have been paid out. Martinez said she's not trying to halt the flights but wants to collect on the $27 million judgement she won against the Cuban government in 2001, for Roque's marriage to her under false pretenses. “These writs are not . . . an effort to hurt U.S. businesses or interfere with air travel to Cuba,'' she said in a statement. ``To the contrary, (they) seem to be the only way to collect a legal debt from the Cuban government. ... America is a country of laws. Those who do wrong here must compensate their victims.'' Roque, a member of the notorious Avispa spy network, returned to Cuba just before Cuba's 1996 shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes that killed four South Florida residents. Martinez later won an annulment of their marriage. Kurzban said he moved to dismiss the writs because they seek to garnish funds that are due to Havanatour and other companies in Cuba, while Martinez won her judgment only against the Cuban government. All the suits against Cuba were made possible by U.S. laws approved in 1996 and 2002, which cleared the way for private citizens to sue foreign governments for terrorist acts and helped victims collect judgments against terrorist-designated states such as Cuba, Iran, and North Korea. Cuba has never defended itself in the U.S. courts. `TERRORIST ACT' Martinez's request for the writs alleges she was ``a victim of a terrorist act. A Cuban spy married her and used her as cover for his espionage activities.'' Her court filings say she has collected $194,000 through release of frozen Cuban assets, but ``nothing more is available through this program.'' In 2002, she successfully seized a Cuban crop-duster, valued at about $45,000, flown to Key West by a group of refugees. Kurzban said eventually the case could affect dozens of other flights, since many U.S. airlines are licensed by the U.S. government to pay Cuba fees for overflying its airspace. The eight charter companies garnished are Marazul, ABC, C&T, Xael, Wilson International Service, Cuba Travel Services, Airline Brokers, and Gulfstream Air Charter. ####################################################################################################### MIAMI, FLORIDA {02-26-2010} ENCOURAGE CHANGE FROM WITHIN FRANCISCO ``PEPE'' HERNANDEZ THESE ARE DAYS OF PROFOUND REFLECTION FOR THE CUBAN-AMERICAN EXILE COMMUNITY. Two days ago the brave prisoner of conscience, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died in Castro's notorious prisons, a victim of the regime's brutality and its disdain for human life. Wednesday, we commemorated another anniversary of that dark day when four defenseless Brothers to the Rescue pilots were mercilessly killed by Castro's henchmen while flying over international waters on a humanitarian rescue mission. Feb. 24 also has been designated International Day of the Cuban Exile. These events, the remembrance of the pain and suffering endured for more than 50 years, give us the opportunity to renew the promise many of us made when we embarked on the journey to freedom: to help restore democracy for the Cuban people. We have a duty to look introspectively at our own actions and how those actions have, thus far, failed to meet the challenge of supporting real change on the island. Today, after long and arduous efforts, most of us have arrived at a consensus that change will come only from the direct action of the Cuban people firmly, albeit nonviolently, demanding their rights. In addition to increasing purposeful people-to-people and family-to-family interaction, which is essential to the overall effort, we must demand of the U.S. government the immediate and effective restructuring of two of our strongest vehicles for helping Cubans to promote change on the island: Radio and Television Martí (Office of Cuba Broadcasting, OCB) and the U.S. Agency for International Development's Cuba Democracy Program. Rather than focusing on the mission of effectively transmitting news and information to the Cuban people and hiring qualified personnel able to utilize modern technology and messaging, OCB's decision-making has been ruled by nepotism and political cronyism the past several years. As a result, Radio and Television Martí are failing to meet their mandate of providing objective news and information to the Cuban people. OCB has virtually eliminated programs that incorporated the participation of Cuban dissidents and has done away with full television newscasts, opting to transmit novelas. Apparently Spanish-language soap operas hold transformative powers we don't know about. Delays in Washington's distribution of funds to USAID's Cuba Program can be attributed in large part to the agency's need to find ways to prevent the rampant misdirection of funds allowed to perpetuate for over a decade. The lack of clear rules allowed some of USAID's grantees to spend 95 percent of the millions of dollars they received to cover salaries, office overhead and attend international conferences, while Cuba's dissidents were left with crumbs. Many of those USAID grantees had funding automatically renewed without the benefit of competition or an assessment of the impact their programs were having on the ground in Cuba. Nearly all have failed to meet USAID's cost-share requirement, instead relying solely on U.S. So here we are, at a crossroads, in need of some urgent decision-making: Do we focus our individual and collective efforts in providing robust support for those brave voices inside of Cuba fighting for change? Will we take the responsibility of salvaging Radio and TV Martí? Do we demand that our elected leaders fight for the transparency and oversight needed to make the USAID Cuba Program work? Our answer should and must be a collective Yes. Francisco “Pepe'' Hernandez is president of the Cuban American National Foundation. ###################################################################################################### UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI, FLORIDA {02-23-2010} CUBA’S FOREIGN POLICY – THE LOGIC OF INTRANSIGENCE JOSÉ AZEL* THE MOST REMARKABLE CHARACTERISTIC OF CUBA’S FOREIGN POLICY is that it seems to capture the world’s imagination. What is it about this rather insignificant, impoverished, Caribbean island of 11 million people that has held our collective attention for over half a century? Cuba has certainly projected its foreign policy onto the international stage. In 1959, the Cuban revolution and its leader, Fidel Castro, fascinated the world with a romanticized image of a domestic social revolution. Then, the world knew little about Castro’s anti-Americanism which dated to his university years. By 1961, with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban revolution had solidified its image as a mythical David successfully confronting the hated Goliath to the north. The following year, in 1962, the world stood still as the United States and the Soviet Union came dangerously close to nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. For the next two and a half decades, with the Soviet Union as its patron and benefactor, Cuba played an important role in the Cold War with its proxy armies and operatives fighting in support of Marxist regimes and insurgencies in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and elsewhere. During this period the Castro government supported the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979, as well as the abhorrent and bloody regimes of Idi Amin in Uganda and Nguema Macias in Equatorial Guinea. Cuba’s foreign alignments have been described as being based on socialist ideology or on the congruency of economic models. But Cuba’s foreign policy has been ideologically inconsistent, supporting, at the same time, liberation movements, brutal dictatorships, foreign occupations, theocratic regimes, and more. Historically Cuba’s geopolitical alliances have transcended profound political, economic, and even theological differences. Cuba’s foreign economic policies have been far from rational, if we understand “rational” to be a desire to improve the well-being of the Cuban population. But Cuba’s foreign policy has been eminently rational if we understand the term to be an uncompromising desire to remain in power and to oppose the United States. Cuba’s foreign policy follows its own logic and rules of engagement. If it is not political ideology or economic pragmatism, what then is the centerpiece of Cuba’s foreign policy? And perhaps more importantly, has it changed under Raul Castro? Our failure to understand Cuba’s foreign policy stems from the fact that our analysis is framed by Western economic rationality. When we extrapolate our logical model to the Castro brothers we are trying to understand from our cultural and analytical environment actions arising from another. Cuba’s foreign policy cannot be fully understood if viewed exclusively from the mindset of Western economic and political rationality. Cuba’s foreign policy follows two uncompromising principles: First, to remain in power, and second, an unmitigated hostility towards liberal democracies and market economies in general and towards the United States in particular. Historically, Cuba’s foreign policy has had as its principal focus the forming of anti-American alliances determined to undermine U.S. national interests. In 1958, while still in the Sierra Maestra, Fidel Castro wrote, “I have sworn to myself that the Americans are going to pay dearly for what they are doing. When this war ends, for me will begin a much longer and bigger war: the war that I am going to wage against them. I realize that this will be my true destiny.” (1) The root cause of Cuba’s intransigence is not adherence to Marxists principles, but rather Fidel Castro’s pathological megalomania. Fidel’s intransigence is best understood as megalomaniacal rather than ideological. It is this pathology that will foil any diplomatic initiatives by the international community or the United States to induce the Castro brothers to undertake political or economic reforms that may undermine their absolute control. If Cuba’s foreign policy can be described as ideological at all, it would be based on an ideology of hate towards the United States Cuba’s regime has managed to outlive ten U.S. administrations, the collapse of the Soviet Union, an abysmally poor economic development track record, and the pauperization of the country. Intransigence is the leitmotif of Cuba’s foreign policy. It has served them well for fifty years. It is a legacy that the Castro brothers are unwilling to compromise. Consequently, as irrational as it may seem to us, diplomatic overtures by the Obama administration and the world community will not move the Castro regime to grant Cubans civil liberties or political rights. Often, Raul Castro has been characterized as a more pragmatic leader than his older brother. And while this may indeed be the case in some aspects of governance, it is not a pragmatism that will lead him to embrace policy changes that may jeopardize his hold on power. More likely, it is a pragmatism that will induce him to formulate practical policies designed to perpetuate power. Undoubtedly, in time, Raul Castro will imprint his own governing style. But Raul Castro is not a peripheral participant in a system created by his brother; he is a central co-creator of that system. The changes that we have seen in Cuba since Raul Castro assumed the presidency are no more than a simple division of labor. The more mundane tasks of running the country have been delegated to the younger brother while Cuba’s foreign policy remains the sole proprietorship of Fidel Castro. In this context it may be useful to remember that when Mikhail Gorbachev visited Cuba in 1989, Castro reportedly warned him that “if you open a window [To Democracy] you will lose all power.” Even after his brother’s passing, Raul Castro is unlikely to open the window. * Dr. José Azel is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, University of Miami. ###################################################################################################### MIAMI, FLORIDA {02-13-2010} U.S. BROADCASTS TO CUBA GET STRONGER LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ // ASSOCIATED PRESS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT'S OFFICIAL BROADCASTS TO CUBA AND THE GOVERNMENT-FUNDED VOICE OF AMERICA are for the first time regularly sharing resources - a move officials hope will enhance both services and which could blunt longtime criticism of the Cuban broadcasts. Some also question whether the move signals the beginning of the end for the controversial U.S. Office of Cuban Broadcasting. Last week, the office's TV and Radio Marti services opened their studios to VOA's Spanish division to jointly produce a regular half-hour radio show. "A Fondo" or "In Depth" provides news and analysis from around the hemisphere. It was developed in part to target Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez has cracked down on opposition and independent media and frequently criticizes U.S. foreign policy. "I am looking into this issue to ensure that this is an effort to maximize resources to expand U.S. coverage in the region and not a back door to reducing U.S. broadcasts to Cuba," U.S Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, told The Associated Press. "If this reduces the capability of Radio and TV Marti, it would be another concession to the Cuban regime who fears the uncensored information these broadcasts offer," added the legislator, a Cuban-American and champion of the decades-old U.S. embargo of Cuba. Miami-based Radio and TV Marti, the government's only foreign broadcasts based outside of Washington, have for years endured charges that the virulent, anti-communist tone of some of their programs was ineffective. Critics - particularly those who oppose Washington's Cuba policies - also question whether anyone on the island even watches the more expensive TV Marti. The Cuban government generally blocks it. The association between the VOA and the Martis could help the latter's reputation, said Nicholas Cull, a University of Southern California professor who has studied the government's foreign broadcasts. "My feeling is that Marti has had a checkered history, and that anything that can pull its output into line with the high journalistic standards of VOA would be for the good," he said. U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., one of the Martis' most ardent critics, had a more cynical take. "I think they realize they're on borrowed time with the Cuba project, so I think they're trying to merge it in as much as they can with Voice of America," he said. Alberto Mascaro, a Miami native and former Office of Cuban Broadcasting executive, recently took the helm of VOA's Spanish-language service in Washington. He says the cooperation is not about politics but about the best use of resources. "Miami being a gateway city, it's a place where we can glean information and guests that in Washington just may not be as accessible. It's a whole additional talent pool," said Mascaro, who hopes to serve as a bridge between the two broadcasts. VOA has news stringers south of the U.S. border but no longer has any bureaus there - making the Miami studios all the more important as Washington seeks to counter increasing criticism from Chavez, Bolivian President Evo Morales and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega. Over the last year, the Marti studios have occasionally produced other shows for VOA and served as a training hub for its journalists from across the region. In recent weeks, VOA has also relied on Marti's Miami studios for much of its broadcasting to Haiti, using local Creole-speaking reporters from the area's large Haitian-American community. Still, the change comes as the Office of Cuban Broadcasting faces budget cuts. Last year it was forced to lay off more than 20 staffers. While the larger VOA's 2011 budget request of $206.8 million is up slightly over previous years, Cuban broadcasting's request of $29.2 million is down about $4 million from 2007. Mascaro insists both organizations adhere to the same standards and serve important but distinct missions. Marti provides a counterbalance to Cuba's tightly controlled, pro-government media. "It's not trying to provide a pro-Castro perspective. They already get that - and only that," he said. VOA's job is to offer a broader spectrum of balanced news about the U.S. and the world, with politically and culturally relevant information for each region. The two services differ on the technical side as well. Because the Cuba broadcasts are not welcome by the country's government, the U.S. must beam them directly into the island via shortwave, AM broadcasts and satellite. While VOA's broadcasts also use shortwave and satellite, and now with "Al Fondo," some AM, they rely more heavily on local affiliates. Yet that may change, too. VOA's Spanish-language radio is carried by only a handful of affiliates in Venezuela, and its TV service by even fewer. Given Chavez's recent decision to take the opposition cable and satellite Radio Caracas Television International off the air, it could soon lose even those platforms. And that would make it all the more dependent on the same modes of transmission the Martis rely on. ######################################################################################################## MIAMI, FLORIDA {02-09-2010} VENEZUELA HEADS TOWARD DISASTER EDITORIAL, THE MIAMI HERALD WHAT LITTLE IS LEFT OF VENEZUELA'S DEMOCRACY has taken a literal beating from President Hugo Chávez's uniformed goon squads -- again. Police used a variety of weapons, from water cannons to plastic bullets, last week to disperse hundreds of student protesters who refuse to knuckle under to an increasingly desperate and unpopular president determined to remain in power at all costs. While the president and his followers were celebrating the anniversary of the failed 1992 coup that first brought him to national attention, the students were protesting the deterioration of their country. It wasn't the first time that Mr. Chávez has resorted to force to quell peaceful political opponents, but the frustration level inside the country is rising as Venezuela's political and economic situation goes from bad to worse. Rolling blackouts, currency devaluation and price inflation (the worst in Latin America), water shortages and scarce commodities -- this is what 11 years of a Chávez presidency have produced. DISMAL ENERGY PROGRAM As if to underline the utter befuddlement of Mr. Chávez's inept government, an advisory team from Cuba, of all places, was brought in to improve the dismal energy program. Cuba? That's like asking Scott Rothstein for advice on legal ethics. The problem with PDVSA, the oil company, as Venezuelans well know, is that Mr. Chávez turned it into a sinecure for political cronies, destroying its once admirable efficiency and productive value. Only by putting the experts back in charge can it hope to recover, but President Chávez is not about to hand authority over to anyone who is not a known loyalist. The problems at PDVSA are emblematic of what's wrong with Venezuela and why his Bolivarian revolution is in trouble. Mr. Chávez has run the economy, and the country, into the ground, but that hasn't stopped him from making trouble wherever he can. As the streets of Caracas were in turmoil, the U.S. director of national intelligence, former Admiral Dennis Blair, was giving Congress an unvarnished assessment of Mr. Chávez's presidency that underlines the danger he represents to the entire region. He has cultivated friendships in all the wrong places, beginning with Iran, spent $6 billion to buy weapons from Russia, and provided covert support to the terrorist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). PRESSURE CHÁVEZ All of this spells disaster for the people of Venezuela -- and the hemisphere. It can be avoided only by the concerted effort of other countries in the region to pressure Mr. Chávez to moderate his behavior and adhere to the rules of democracy. Isn't that what the Organization of American States is for? Mr. Chávez has undermined, if not destroyed Venezuela's once vibrant, if imperfect, democracy. He has bullied his neighbors, fueled a regional arms race and brought political tensions inside the country to a boiling point. The region's leaders shouldn't wait for domestic bloodshed or a cross-border conflict to move them to act. ####################################################################################################### MIAMI, FLORIDA {02-01-2010} SUPPORT FOR U.S. PROGRAMS THAT HELP CUBA RUNNING ON EMPTY |JUAN O. TAMAYO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT'S CUBA DEMOCRACY PROGRAMS are all but paralyzed, facing political, safety and bureaucratic hurdles that critics and backers agree could end up halting their more aggressive features. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which doles out much of the money, has not requested new funding proposals since March, and groups that run the programs complain they have little money left. Powerful Democrats in Congress are vowing to block the more ``provocative'' programs, and the Obama administration is hinting it may halt a key part of the programs that Cuba brands as “subversive.'' “If this continues in the same way, the whole pro-democracy program is going to be dead,'' said Frank Calzon, whose Center for a Free Cuba in suburban Washington stopped receiving U.S. funds last year. Launched during the Clinton administration, the Cuba Democracy Assistance program was expanded under President George W. Bush and Congress in 2008 approved $40 million for the two-year period that ends Sept. 30. The money goes to non-government organizations and private firms that in turn support dissidents, independent journalists and other peaceful civil society groups and deliver items like books, shortwave radios, computers satellite TV receivers and cellphones. Some of program's current problems are bureaucratic, several knowledgeable persons told El Nuevo Herald. Most requested anonymity and declined to comment on the U.S. funds their organizations receive, because of the political sensitivity of the issue. USAID has been leaderless for the past year, they all agreed. Rajiv Shah, President Barack Obama's pick to head the agency, was sworn in just this month. Elaine Grigsby, its veteran head of Cuba programs, moved to another post last year. And her replacement was quickly reassigned to Pakistan. ‘HIGH LEVEL SUPPORT' “Given its sensitive and political nature, the Cuba program needs . . . most importantly, high level support to push the bureaucracy,'' said a former Bush administration official. But the bureaucrats' “default is to do as little as possible until they know what the White House and the political leadership want.'' USAID's notice requesting new proposals for Cuba programs, initially expected in March, still has not been issued, said the head of a nonprofit that receives U.S. funds. “We're going to have to basically pack up and close,'' said Frank Hernandez Trujillo of the Miami-based Grupo de Apoyo a la Disidencia when the last of his USAID money runs out March 31. The group received $6 million since 2005, he said. And at the State Department, which also handles some of the Cuba funds, Obama appointee Arturo Valenzuela was not sworn in as deputy secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs until November. The paralysis in the pro-democracy programs, said supporters, comes at a time when Cubans are expressing increasing frustration with the economy and political controls. “This is the worst possible time for the funds to be frozen, because the civil society movement in Cuba is giving clear signals it is awake,'' said Orlando Gutierrez of the Cuban Democratic Directorate in Miami. Cuban authorities threw the programs into further turmoil Dec. 4, when they arrested USAID subcontractor Alan Gross in Havana. Gross, who remains jail, had been reportedly helping Jewish groups on the island gain ``unfiltered'' access to the Internet. RISKY ASPECTS Gross' arrest highlighted the more aggressive and risky aspects of the U.S. programs -- the Cuban government makes it a crime to receive U.S. assistance and tightly controls communications equipment -- and sparked speculation that Havana will keep him in prison until Washington puts a stop to at least some of the programs. The arrest already led USAID and the State Department to clamp down on such travel by U.S. contractors and subcontractors, one of the key ways in which goods have been slipped into the island in recent years. On Dec. 28, the State Department's Cuba desk sent out an e-mail ``to re-emphasize our recommendation to temporarily defer travel to the island until further notice,'' according to a copy obtained by El Nuevo Herald. The e-mail, said recipients, amounted to a stop-travel order. Florida Republican Sen. George LeMieux said he met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Rajiv Shah last month and won their promise to move quickly on the stalled Cuba funds. #######################################################################################################

* MEDIA GROUP URGES CUBA TO FREE JAILED JOURNALISTS
* CUBA TO TRIM HEALTH CARE SPENDING, WORKFORCE
* CUBA IMPOSES “STATE OF SIEGE” FOR DISSIDENT’S FUNERAL
* CUBA REDEFINES TORTURE
* US OFFICIALS ASK CUBA TO RELEASE JAILED AMERICAN
* WIFE URGES RELEASE OF U.S. CONTRACTOR FROM CUBA
* “VENECUBA”, A SINGLE NATION
* CUBA SHARPLY REDUCES US FOOD IMPORTS AMID HARDSHIP

HAVANA, CUBA {03-05-2010} MEDIA GROUP URGES CUBA TO FREE JAILED JOURNALISTS PAUL HAVEN // ASSOCIATED PRESS A MEDIA WATCHDOG GROUP called on Cuba to release jailed independent journalists - or at least improve their prison conditions - and said Thursday it would hold the government responsible for the health of an opposition reporter staging a hunger strike. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Cuba, an island of just 11.4 million, has 22 reporters in its jails - putting it behind only China and Iran on the global list. "Cuban journalists have paid an extremely high price for exercising their right to freedom of expression," Carlos Lauria, CPJ's senior program coordinator for the Americas, said in a statement. "These sentences are cruel and vengeful." Cuba considers dissidents mercenaries of Washington who take money to try and destabilize the country's communist government, and it routinely dismisses groups like CPJ as agents of the U.S. government. Many members of the small community of independent journalists in Havana use Internet service provided by the U.S. Interests Section, which Washington maintains in Cuba instead of an embassy. The journalists say it is the only way they can file in a country where access to the Web is prohibitively expensive and tightly controlled. Cuba says it is evidence they are stooges. Independent journalist Guillermo Farinas has been refusing food and water for more than a week to protest the Feb. 23 death of another hunger striking dissident, Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Farinas is also demanding the release of 33 political prisoners who are in poor health. The 48-year-old lost consciousness and was hospitalized on Wednesday, but released a short time later after doctors told him they could do nothing for him if he refused to eat. "He remains firm in his hunger strike," Farinas' mother, Alicia Hernandez, told The Associated Press by telephone Thursday, from the family home in the central city of Santa Clara. CPJ said conditions in Cuban jails are poor and the cells unhygienic, leading to illnesses and exacerbating existing conditions. "We call on President (Raul) Castro to free all the jailed reporters immediately and without condition, and to guarantee freedom of expression and information to all Cuban citizens," the journalist group said. ####################################################################################################### HAVANA, CUBA {03-01-2010} CUBA TO TRIM HEALTH CARE SPENDING, WORKFORCE ASSOCIATED PRESS COMMUNIST PARTY DAILY GRANMA reported Friday an excess of spending and personnel in Cuba’s health care sector, and announced that the ranks of health professionals would be thinned in some provinces. Citing widespread overstaffing in health care, one-time pride of the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro, the newspaper said that in some areas the “work of optimizing human resources” has begun. It also complained of the “disproportionate prescribing of medical diets, medicines, and diagnostic and therapeutic measures, as well as the reckless use of resources in warehouses and health-care institutions.” “One great malaise of the current Cuban economy,” Granma said, “is the overstaffing found in most places, a flaw that brings with it other evils like the loss of motivation for work, low productivity and a lack of discipline.” The daily said that a survey taken in the central province of Villa Clara showed a deficit of 401 employees in one area and at the same time an excess of 1,459 in another. There was also a scarcity of equipment, reagents and medicines in pharmacies and health-care centers while they were described as “lying idle” in storehouses of the province. “Irrational situations like these are what force the socialist state to pay, again and again, millions of pesos to acquire what we are incapable of conserving, distributing or controlling correctly,” Granma said. The paper also criticized the fact that the Cuban health-care system “loses so much” each year, thanks to the “excessive handing out” of medicines and patient benefits. The Villa Clara study showed that 38 percent of the applications for disability payments were “unwarranted,” Granma said. Spending on health care and education consumes 60 percent of the Cuban government’s budget. ###################################################################################################### HAVANA, CUBA {02-27-2010} CUBA IMPOSES “STATE OF SIEGE” FOR DISSIDENT’S FUNERAL EFE THE REMAINS OF CUBAN POLITICAL PRISONER ORLANDO ZAPATA TAMAYO were laid to rest early Thursday in his home town amid a “genuine state of siege,” a leading dissident said. Banes, in the eastern province of Holguin, has been “occupied since Tuesday,” the day Zapata died after a nearly three-month hunger strike, Elizardo Sanchez told Efe. At least 50 government opponents were detained or confined to their homes to prevent their attending the funeral, according to Sanchez, chairman of the unofficial Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation. Banes, he said, “was like a town in the Philippines seized by the Japanese army.” Dissidents and the deceased’s family say Gen. Raul Castro’s government withheld Zapata’s body until Wednesday and then demanded that he be buried that afternoon. After the dead dissident’s mother, Reina Tamayo, asked to be allowed to hold a wake and delay the burial, authorities said interment could take place at 7:00 a.m. Thursday, Sanchez told Efe. “They wanted to bury him before Banes woke up,” the commission chairman said. Prominent blogger Yoani Sanchez told Efe that she was briefly detained Wednesday while walking to the home of another dissident to sign a book of condolences for Zapata’s family. Cuba’s state media monopoly continues to ignore Zapata’s death, even though Raul Castro issued a public statement Wednesday “lamenting” the prisoner’s demise. In a brief communique, Gen. Castro said Zapata’s death was the result – in some unspecified way – of Cuba’s troubled relationship with the United States and insisted that the only place in Cuba where torture occurs is the detention center for terror suspects at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay. “There are no torture victims, there have been no torture victims, there have been no executions. That happens at the base in Guantanamo,” Castro said as he and visiting Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were touring the port of Mariel, near Havana. Zapata’s mother and leading dissidents say the prisoner’s health was poor prior to beginning the hunger strike due to beatings and mistreatment behind bars. The 42-year-old Zapata was one of 75 government opponents rounded up and jailed in Spring 2003 on charges of conspiring with the United States to undermine the Cuban Revolution. While some of those dissidents have since been freed on medical grounds, more than 50 remain behind bars on the communist-ruled island. Officials added years to Zapata’s original sentence because of his repeated protests over prison conditions. He stopped eating in December with the aim of pressuring authorities to acknowledge his designation by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. Last week, officials at the penitentiary in the eastern city of Camagüey grew alarmed about Zapata’s condition and transferred him to a prison hospital in Havana, from where he was later taken to the military clinic where he died. EFE ####################################################################################################### HAVANA, CUBA {02-26-2010} CUBA REDEFINES TORTURE MIRIAM LEIVA ORLANDO ZAPATA TAMAYO DIED ON FEB. 23 AS A RESULT OF A HUNGER STRIKE HE MAINTAINED FOR MORE THAN 80 DAYS to demand adequate treatment for his status as a prisoner of conscience. He staged many other strikes since March 20, 2003. Arrested during the repressive wave called the Black Spring in March 2003, he was not among the 75 defendants given summary trials with sentences of up to 28 years' imprisonment. He was sentenced to only three years, but not through kindness or justice. He should have been released four years ago. In reality, he never committed a crime, because he only defended his right to express his ideas -- the release of political prisoners, prosperity for the Cuban people and love for his homeland. From his arrival in prison, the sadism of the self-style ``world's most democratic [regime] and most respectful of human rights'' picked on this young black man, a humble mason and plumber born on May 15, 1967. Solitary confinement, beatings and abuses did not shatter his dignity. Successive accusations while in prison led to trials without a defense attorney that ended in compounded sentences of 35 years at the time he was assassinated. He went through several prisons because of the protests he staged with other prisoners of conscience like him and political prisoners, despite the isolation to which they were subjected. No one is tortured in Cuba, the government boasts! But are cruel treatment, the absence of medical attention, the lack of medications, the bad food, the scant and contaminated water, the nonexisting hygiene, the crowding with common and highly dangerous prisoners, the shouts, the insects and rodents not considered physical torture? Being cloistered in a 2-by-3-meter cell without a window or ventilation, with a hole in the ground for one's bodily functions and a trickle of water (when available), having neither food nor water, experiencing dampness and cold or intense heat, depending on the season, seem like exquisite torture. Being deprived of letters or telephone calls, of books, newspapers and writing utensils tops off the treatment in Cuban prisons. The denial of family visits as punishment, after many months of waiting, is routine. Reyna Tamayo, Orlando's mother, has toured Cuba from one prison to another. She demanded humane treatment for her anguished, yet tough, son from the prisons' authorities, the Ministry of the Interior, the government and the judiciary. She learned about the new trials after they had been held and the new sentences after they had been imposed. She traveled thousands of kilometers in almost seven years, carrying food and clothing acquired with great effort, only to return home with most of it because authorities limited the allowable weight or denied her visits. How that humble black Cuban woman was tortured. In a country where ``there is no racial discrimination and we all are equal!'' Orlando Zapata Tamayo was transferred from Camagüey to Havana as he expired. The clamor of the peaceful opposition, the solidarity of the prisoners of conscience and political prisoners, as well as the denunciations by international public opinion moved the egotistical totalitarians. Since 2004, they have managed to keep inmates from dying in prison by granting them parole or medical treatment in prison before they reach total debilitation. Miguel Valdés Tamayo died on Jan. 9, 2007, in a Havana hospital because of a heart condition that was aggravated by his imprisonment. He had been granted parole months earlier. He was the first martyr among the 75 detainees. He was also black and poor. Orlando was removed from the National Hospital for Inmates, in the Combinado del Este maximum-security prison, and taken to much-publicized Hermanos Almeijeiros Hospital hours before his death, so he could die in a civilian facility of the highest level, a facility to which he had not been taken in a timely manner. Of the 75 original ``Black Spring'' prisoners of conscience, 53 remain in prison. Most suffer from serious illnesses, contracted in prison. Many have been threatened with following the path of Miguel and Orlando. There are about 200 political prisoners and Cuba occupies a shameful fourth place for the number it holds: 531 for every 100,000 inhabitants. Genocide -- ``a grave lesion to the physical or mental integrity of the members of a group,'' according to the 1948 United Nations Convention -- has been institutionalized in Cuba. Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada army barracks, causing the deaths of many. He served only 21 months in a prison where he cooked lobster, smoked cigars, welcomed visitors, received books and correspondence, was photographed and interviewed by journalists. During the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban Congress granted him amnesty. Miriam Leiva is an independent journalist in Havana. ##################################################################################################### HAVANA, CUBA {02-21-2010} US OFFICIALS ASK CUBA TO RELEASE JAILED AMERICAN ASSOCIATED PRESS TOP U.S. DIPLOMATS USED A HIGH-LEVEL meeting with their Cuban counterparts Friday to call for the release of an American held in a maximum security prison without charge for nearly three months. Cuba alleges Alan P. Gross is a spy whose arrest proves Washington is still out to topple the island's communist government. Gross' family maintains he is a veteran development worker who came to Cuba to distribute communications equipment to Jewish groups. Both the U.S. and Cuba also offered restrained praise for the discussions, which lasted about five hours and focused on migration issues. The Cubans said the talks at an undisclosed location in Havana were positive and respectful, while the U.S. called them part of a larger, constructive process. The U.S. also said in a statement that its delegation, led by Craig Kelly, deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs and the highest-ranking American official to visit in years, "raised the case of the U.S. citizen detained in Cuba and called for his immediate release." In its own assessment, Cuba made no mention of Gross' arrest or of American officials' broaching the issue, saying only that the meeting "took place in an atmosphere of respect." Elizardo Sanchez, head of the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, said he and other dissident leaders were invited to talk to the U.S. delegation later Friday. Such a meeting is not unusual when U.S. diplomats visit - but is sure to rankle Cuban leaders, who describe dissidents as Washington's paid stooges. The regularly scheduled migration talks came at a low point in relations between two Cold War enemies that have been at each other's throats for months about a range of issues, especially the arrest of Gross, who was in Cuba on a program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. He has been held since early December at Havana's high-security Villa Marista jail. The little-known USAID program in Cuba was begun under President George W. Bush and devotes millions of dollars to the promotion of democracy on the island. Gross's company, DAI of Bethesda, Maryland, says he was distributing communications equipment to Cuba's tiny Jewish community, not to dissidents. Nonetheless, such equipment is tightly controlled by the communist government. U.S. officials questioned the timing of Gross' arrest, saying he had been to Havana before on the same program and never had a problem. Gross' wife, Judy, issued a video statement saying he was a humanitarian, not a spy. The Gross case aside, "engaging in these talks underscores our interest in pursuing constructive discussions with the government of Cuba to advance U.S. interests on issues of mutual concern," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said in a statement. There has been speculation Cuba will seek to exchange the 60-year-old Gross for five Cuban agents imprisoned in Miami since the 1990s after being convicted of spying. Cuba considers them anti-terrorist fighters who were trying to shut down a bombing campaign by anti-Castro Cuban-Americans. Parliamentary leader Ricardo Alarcon refused to answer questions about Gross on Friday, but said Cuban authorities would use the immigration talks to bring up the fate of their agents. "We mention them at every meeting," he said. Alarcon added that Havana has offered to widen bilateral discussions with the United States and is still waiting for an answer. ####################################################################################################### WASHINGTON, D.C. {02-20-2010} WIFE URGES RELEASE OF U.S. CONTRACTOR FROM CUBA JUAN O. TAMAYO THE WIFE OF U.S. GOVERNMENT SUBCONTRACTOR ALAN GROSS, jailed in Havana since Dec. 3, has urged U.S. and Cuban officials to resolve his case when they meet for migration talks on Friday. “Alan has done nothing wrong and we need him home,'' his wife of 40 years, Judy Gross, said in a calm voice in a video sent to news media Thursday. Raúl Castro and the president of Cuba's legislature, Ricardo Alarcón, have suggested that the 60-year-old Gross was linked to U.S. intelligence agencies, though he has not been charged with any crime. Judy Gross described her husband as a ``humanitarian'' who has done development work in some 50 countries and was ``only helping the Cuban Jewish community improve its communications and Internet access.'' Noting that senior U.S. and Cuban officials are scheduled to meet Friday in Havana, she added that she hoped ``they can get get together and mutually agree on a way to bring him home'' to Potomac, Md. She added that she had spoken with her husband only three brief times since his Dec. 3 arrest -- the date previously had been reported as Dec. 4 or 5 -- and that his 86-year-old mother has been in failing health. “We're hoping that you can help us find a way to get him back to the us,'' she said in a video made available to journalists by Chlopak Leonard Schechter and Associates, a public relations firm in Washington D.C. Gross was in Cuba under a contract with Development Alternatives Inc., a suburban Washington company, which was contracted by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2008 to promote civil society on the island. But neither U.S. nor Cuban officials have detailed exactly what he was doing in Cuba. A fact sheet provided by CLA said he was ``helping Cuba's tiny Jewish community set up an intranet so that they could communicate amongst themselves and with other Jewish communities abroad, and providing them with the ability to access the Internet.'' Knowledgeable U.S. government officials have said he delivered a satellite phone, capable of making telephone calls and accessing the Internet without having to go through the Cuban telecommunications system, tightly controlled and monitored by the government. Cuba has strict regulations on the importation and use of satellite phones. Gross is a “naive'' development expert who did not realize the serious implications of delivering the satellite phone to nongovernment groups in Cuba, said one official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. On Dec. 20, Castro said Gross was involved with ``sophisticated'' communications equipment. He has been held in Villa Marista, a Havana facility where serious security cases are investigated. Gross' Congressional representatives meanwhile sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying that the migration talks would be ``an ideal forum for our government to forcefully [protest] . . . . . . Mr. Gross' detention and demand his immediate release.'' “The continued incarceration of Alan Gross serves as a significant barrier to any further progress [in relations] between Cuba and the United States,'' wrote Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, all Democrats, in their Feb. 17 letter. Craig Kelly, the No. 2 official in the State Department's Western Hemisphere Affairs section, is expected to meet with Cuban counterparts for migration talks resumed by the Obama administration after a lengthy suspension during the George W. Bush administration. A State Department statement Wednesday said only that the talks would focus on ``how to best promote safe, legal and orderly migration'' between the two countries. ##################################################################################################### CARACAS, VENEZUELA {02-18-2010} “VENECUBA”, A SINGLE NATION ASSOCIATED PRESSS IN A SMALL FISHING VILLAGE ON THE CARIBBEAN COAST OF VENEZUELA STANDS A PLINTH. Unveiled by government officials in 2006, it pays homage to the Cuban guerrillas sent by Fidel Castro in the 1960s to help subvert Venezuela’s then recently restored democracy. Almost entirely bereft of popular support, the guerrilla campaign flopped. But four decades later, and after a decade of rule by Hugo Chávez, Cuba’s communist regime seems finally to have achieved its goal of invading oil-rich Venezuela—this time without firing a shot. Earlier this month Ramiro Valdés, a veteran revolutionary who ranks number three in Cuba’s ruling hierarchy and was twice its interior minister, arrived in Caracas, apparently for a long stay. Officially, Mr Valdés has come to head a commission set up by Mr Chávez to resolve Venezuela’s acute electricity shortage. But he lacks expertise in this field, and Cuba is famous for 12-hour blackouts. Some members of Venezuela’s opposition reckon that Mr Valdés, whose responsibilities at home include policing Cubans’ access to the internet, has come to help Mr Chávez step up repression ahead of a legislative election in September. Others believe he was sent to assess the gravity of the situation facing the Castro brothers’ most important ally (Cuba depends on Mr Chávez for subsidised oil). He has been seen in meetings with Venezuelan military commanders. Although by far the most senior, Mr Valdés is only one among many Cubans who have been deployed by Mr Chávez under bilateral agreements that took shape in 2003. As well as thousands of doctors staffing a community-health programme, they include people who are helping to run Venezuela’s ports, telecommunications, police training, the issuing of identity documents and the business registry. In 2005 Venezuela’s government gave Cuba a contract to modernise its identity-card system. Since then, Cuban officials have been spotted in agencies such as immigration and passport control. A group of Cubans who recently fled Venezuela told a newspaper in Miami that they had bribed a Cuban official working in passport control at Caracas airport. In some ministries, such as health and agriculture, Cuban advisers appear to wield more power than Venezuelan officials. The health ministry is often unable to provide statistics—on primary health-care or epidemiology for instance—because the information is sent back to Havana instead. Mr Chávez seemed to acknowledge this last year when, by his own account, he learned that thousands of primary health-care posts had been shut down only when Mr Castro told him so. Coffee-growers complain that in meetings with the government it is Bárbara Castillo, a former Cuban trade minister, who calls the shots. Ms Castillo, who was formally seconded to Venezuela four years ago, refuses requests for interviews. Trade unions, particularly in the oil and construction industries, have complained of ill-treatment by the Cubans. No unions are allowed on Cuban-run building sites. In September last year Froilán Barrios of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, which opposes the government, said that “oil and petrochemicals are completely penetrated by Cuban G2,” the Castros’ fearsomely efficient intelligence service. Oil workers planning a strike said they had been threatened by Cuban officials. The new national police force and the army have both adopted policies inspired by Cuba. The chief adviser to the national police-training academy is a Cuban, and Venezuela’s defence doctrine is based on Cuba’s “war of all the people”. Foreign officials who watch Venezuela closely say that Cuban agents occupy key posts in Venezuela’s military intelligence agency, but these claims are impossible to verify. Mr Chávez portrays Cuban help as socialist solidarity in the struggle against “the empire”, as he calls the United States. When he was visiting Cuba in 2005 Fidel Castro said publicly to him that their two countries were “a single nation”. “With one flag,” added Mr Chávez, to which Mr Castro replied, “We are Venecubans.” These views are not shared by Venezuelans. In a recent poll 85% of respondents said they did not want their country to become like Cuba. Perhaps Mr Valdés will include that in his assessment. ####################################################################################################### HAVANA, CUBA {02-13-2010} CUBA SHARPLY REDUCES US FOOD IMPORTS AMID HARDSHIP ASSOCIATED PRESS CUBA HAS SLASHED FOOD AND AGRICULTURE IMPORTS FROM THE UNITED STATES - its largest food supplier despite decades of sour relations - as the communist government tightens its belt in the face of a crippling economic malaise. Imports fell 26 percent in 2009 to $528 million, after peaking at $710 million the year before, according to a report Wednesday by the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Economic Trade Council, which provides nonpartisan commercial and economic information about the island and claims to have no position on policy. "The decrease has nothing to do with U.S. regulations, U.S. law or U.S. policy," said John Kavulich, a senior policy analyst at the council. "It is a function of Cuba not having the resources." Kavulich said Cuba has increasingly turned to other countries like Vietnam that will sell it lower-quality food and not ask for payment for as long as two years. Despite the half-century feud across the Straits of Florida, the United States is the largest seller of food to Cuba: Food and agriculture products have been exempted from the 48-year embargo since 2000. Cuba waited more than a year after that to start importing U.S. food - angered by a provision requiring it to pay cash upfront before delivery. But a hurricane in late 2001 hurt food production and gave it little choice. Today, Cubans getting food from monthly ration books eat chicken from Arkansas and wheat from Nebraska. Upscale markets stock everything from Kellogg's cereal to Heinz ketchup to Oreo cookies - though the prices are exorbitant. Imports from other major trading partners such as Venezuela, China and Spain are also down. Rodrigo Malmierca, the minister of foreign trade, said in November that trade during the first three quarters of 2009 was off 36 percent. Cuba's economy has recently been hit by a triple-whammy of bad news: Three major hurricanes did more than $10 billion in damage in 2008, the global economic crisis dampened tourism profits and a drop in commodities prices hurt nickel sales for much of 2009. President Raul Castro has tried to offset falling imports by increasing domestic agriculture production, turning over tens of thousands of hectares (acres) of fallow land to small farmers. He has warned repeatedly that the government can no longer afford to spend so much subsidizing life on the island, and that Cubans must work harder and take more responsibility for their economic well-being. The government controls well over 90 percent of the economy and heavily subsidizes all aspects of life while paying an average salary of about $20 a month. Cubans get free health care and education, and usually pay next-to-nothing for housing and utilities. Havana has taken baby-steps toward changing that system, eliminating some staples from the ration book, dropping free lunches for workers at some state enterprises and trimming health and education spending. ########################################################################################################

* MURDERS REMAIN ON THE RISE IN VENEZUELA
* VENEZUELA ECONOMY SHRINKS 5.8 % IN THE FOURTH QUARTER
* SPANISH HIGH COURT ACCUSES VENEZUELA OF "COOPERATING" WITH ETA-FARC ALLIANCE
* VENEZUELA'S RANCHERS WARN AGAINST ARMING PEASANTS
* VENEZUELAN RETAILERS VIEW AS UNFEASIBLE 20 PERCENT REDUCTION IN POWER DEMAND BY DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ
* VENEZUELAN DIRECTOR HUGO CHAVEZ LAUNCHES NEW VENEZUELA MARKET
* DISABLED THERMAL UNITS CURB ENERGY GENERATION BY 438 MW
* VENEZUELA CURTAILS OIL EXPORTS TO THE UNITED STATES
* CLASHES AFTER ANTI-CHAVEZ TV CHANNEL REMOVED
* ENERGY CRISIS THREATENS VENEZUELAN EXPORTS OF FUEL OIL AND DIESEL
* CHAVEZ FOES PROTEST VENEZUELA'S DOMESTIC WOES

CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{03-10-2010}

MURDERS REMAIN ON THE RISE IN VENEZUELA
EL UNIVERSAL

THE NUMBER OF HOMICIDES IN VENEZUELA ROSE LAST YEAR TO 16,047, COMPARED WITH 14,589 IN 2008, according to a report by the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, or OW, which names impunity and corruption as the chief causes.

The document entitled “A Decade of Impunity in Venezuela (1998-2009),” sent to Efe on Monday, shows a total of 123,091 homicides during that period and statistics that reflect a constant rise since the 4,550 murders reported in 1998.

Impunity, according to the report, is the chief cause of the growing number of homicides since 1998, and says that even as the number of homicides increased, the number of arrests declined.

The analysis by the OW, directed by sociologist Roberto Briceño-Leon, a professor at the Central University of Venezuela, found that no one was ever arrested for 91 percent of the homicides that occurred in the country in 2009.

In 2007, 2008 and 2009, only nine suspects were arrested for every 100 homicides, compared with 58 in 1998, the study says, citing police files as its source.

Contributing to the violence was the large number of firearms owned by Venezuela’s roughly 28 million residents, estimated to be between 9-15 million, according to figures provided by the Incosec think-tank.

The corruption at the heart of police forces is another of the main factors, something acknowledged by Interior Minister Tarek el Aissami, who said last year that police and the military are involved in 20 percent of homicides.

Caracas has just experienced another bloody week, which ended with 41 homicides, according to unofficial figures, among whose victims was a member of the new PNB police force recently created by the government to deal with the widespread insecurity.

President Hugo Chavez announced the creation of the PNB in December with the goal of combating insecurity, the problem that all surveys say is citizens’ biggest worry.

Generalized violence affects all sectors of Venezuelan society, as shown by last week’s kidnapping of Finance Minister Jorge Giordani’s secretary by Caracas city cops.

Jaklin Arcia was kidnapped when she was driving to work by four men who demanded 190,000 bolivares ($45,000) to set her free.

The national police was informed by Arcia’s family, and at the time the ransom was delivered, managed to nab one of the criminals, who turned out to be a member of the capital’s Metropolitan Police and who acted with another three agents that managed to escape.

Several days ago, the director of the opposition Caracas daily 2001, Israel Marquez, was gunned down by car thieves.

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
{03-06-2010}