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Idaho's Governor in Cuba on Trade Trip
By John Miller, Associated
Press Writer, April 9, 2007.
As Salesman and Governor,
Idaho's Otter Likes His Locales Exotic,
Like Cuba
BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- When Gov. C.L. "Butch"
Otter and his 35-member entourage make landfall
in Cuba Tuesday for a four-day trade mission,
he can draw on his past experience with
Spanish-speaking island nations.
In 1981, Otter had a personal audience
with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos
in his Manila presidential palace over a
proposed $50 million french fry processing
plant for spud-king J.R. Simplot, Otter's
employer at the time. Afterward, an upbeat
Otter said Marcos was even eyeing a trip
to Idaho.
Marcos never made it to Idaho; he was run
out of the Philippines in 1986 after demonstrations.
Still, in Otter's first official out-of-country
trip as chief executive, he's continuing
what's almost an avocation: Traveling to
high-profile yet out-of-the-way locales
with spotty political pedigrees in search
of new markets for Idaho products. In addition
to his Philippine fling 25 years ago, Otter
has already been to Cuba three times, as
a Republican U.S. House member on lobbyist-funded
trips.
With Cuba's communist dictator Fidel Castro
ailing, Otter is among those optimistic
that political change will help turn the
island's 11 million residents into big consumers.
In March, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman was
the latest U.S. official to visit Cuba,
which bought $340 million in U.S. farm products
in 2006.
"He's (Otter) going down there to
sell groceries," said Jon Hanian, Otter's
spokesman. "It isn't to be adventurous.
It's an opportunity to make some sales."
Back in 1981, Otter, as head of Simplot
International, the french fry maker's global
development division, said Marcos was "overwhelmingly
receptive" to lifting import restrictions
on agricultural seeds and supplies.
"He told his people to do whatever
was necessary to get the project moving,"
Otter said, after the hour-long meeting
with Marcos, whose government was accused
of political slayings during nine years
of martial law.
A quarter-century later, Otter's cordiality
extends to Castro, whom the U.S. says jails
political dissidents.
In 2004, on a mission to Cuba with U.S.
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, Otter gave Castro
several bottles of wine from Idaho, and
got flowers and Cuban cigars in return.
This March 13, Otter told reporters he
had a "respectful" relationship
with Castro; the U.S. State Department is
trying to oust him from power with an embargo
(it doesn't include food) and travel restrictions
on U.S. residents.
"The thing that irritates me the most
about the State Department's policy toward
Cuba is that it's not a policy toward Cuba,"
Otter said at an Idaho Press Club-sponsored
event. "You're a free American, you
should be able to travel anywhere you want,
whenever you want."
Back in 2004, Craig and Otter signed a
potential $10 million nonbinding deal with
Cuba for Idaho agricultural products. Still,
the Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor
has on record just $22,616 in sales to Cuba
in the last decade -- a shipment of frozen
potatoes.
Cuba is trying to expand its oil and natural
gas, and it's experimenting with turning
some of its sugar into ethanol. When its
natural resources take off, Otter says,
so will demand.
The trade mission includes Otter; his wife,
Lori; two members of the Idaho Potato Commission;
officials from Idaho operations of Swiss
seedmaker Syngenta; business professors
from Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg;
milk company executives; an Idaho Falls
health care products maker; Marty Peterson,
a University of Idaho official trying to
save author Ernest Hemingway's Cuban house;
and Elizabeth Murtland, of the Hands of
Hope medical mission.
Carl Montgomery, vice president of the
Idaho Farm Bureau and a sugar beet farmer
from Eden, is going along, too. Not to sell
sugar, though; the crop in Cuba is still
important, even if it's been replaced by
tourism as the top foreign income generator.
"I hope to be more of a facilitator,"
said Montgomery. "I don't know what
sort of farm organizations they have in
Cuba, but we'll find out. I hope to make
some farmer-to-farmer relationships, on
things that would be beneficial to farmers
here in Idaho."
Otter's jaunt to the Philippines in 1981
didn't yield hoped-for results. The $50
million Simplot processing plant never got
built, and his plans to make the Philippines
a big market for Idaho irrigation equipment,
harvest machinery, and farm chemicals also
sputtered.
He's hoping Cuba, a gambling haven in the
1950s before Castro's revolution, will be
a better bet.
"He feels that Cuba could potentially
be a lucrative market for Idaho markets,"
said Hanian. "That's why he's taking
this group down there."
Judge sets Cuban militant free on bail
By Alicia A. Caldwell, Associated Press
Writer, April 6, 2007.
EL PASO, Texas - A federal judge on Friday
ordered Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles
set free on bail pending trial on charges
he lied in a bid to become a U.S. citizen,
and the government immediately asked that
he remain jailed.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone didn't
immediately rule on federal prosecutors'
request. They wanted him to remain in custody
while they determine if they can appeal
the judge's decision.
Posada, 79, is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela
on charges that he was in Caracas when he
plotted the deadly 1976 bombing of a Cuban
jetliner. He also has been ordered deported
by a federal immigration judge, though U.S.
authorities have been unable to find a country
willing to accept the former CIA operative.
Felipe D.J. Millan, Posada's attorney,
said Posada remained jailed in Otero County,
N.M. Friday afternoon. Millan said he did
not know when Posada could be released,
but said it would likely not happen over
the holiday weekend.
"He deserves to go home and live in
peace and enjoy his family," Millan
said. "Obviously we'll do whatever
we need to do to post bond. We'll try to
get him as soon as possible."
Cardone ordered that Posada post a $250,000
cash or corporate surety bond. His wife
and two adult children must post a $100,000
appearance and compliance signature bond
and agree to take responsibility of him
when he is released.
The judge also ordered that Posada, a former
CIA operative who had a role in the failed
Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, live with
his wife in Miami under 24-hour home confinement
and submit to electronic monitoring.
The government argued that because of the
timing of the order, about 2 p.m. Eastern
time on Good Friday, Posada could be released
before government lawyers had time to decide
and get permission to file an appeal.
"The United States needs time to consider
the adequacy of these conditions and whether
to appeal this court's ruling," the
prosecutors wrote.
Posada has been jailed since May 2005,
when he was arrested on an immigration violation
after telling authorities that he sneaked
across the Mexican border into Texas. An
immigration judge later ordered that he
be deported, but ruled that Posada could
not be sent to Cuba, where he was born,
or Venezuela, where he is a naturalized
citizen, because of fears that he could
be tortured.
His trial is set for May 11.
Cuban Official to Youth: Shun Capitalism
By Will Weissert, Associated
Press Writer, April 5, 2007.
Top Cuban Official Urges
Island's Youth to Avoid Capitalism's 'Siren
Song'
HAVANA (AP) -- One of the most-visible
faces of Cuba's caretaker government urged
the island's young people Wednesday to ignore
capitalism's "siren song," while
acknowledging that the country's current
communist system was not as "ideal"
as had been desired.
Marking the 45th anniversary of the founding
of the Communist Youth Union, Vice President
and Cabinet Secretary Carlos Lage said the
revolution that Fidel Castro led by toppling
dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 will
have to live on in a generation that may
be unsure of what it is rebelling against.
"We always knew the biggest challenge
of socialism is to instill in young people
a communist conscience and rejection of
capitalism, without having lived in it,
without having seen the moral damage it
produces," Lage said, addressing a
packed house at Havana's Karl Marx Theater.
Part the union's job now, he said, is to
help make young people "immune to the
siren song" of capitalism."
Lage is a key member of the provisional
government headed by 75-year-old defense
minister Raul Castro, who took power when
his better known brother Fidel stepped down
temporarily following emergency intestinal
surgery last summer.
Fidel Castro has not been seen in public
since, but life on the island has been little
changed and top government leaders have
insisted the 80-year-old revolutionary is
on the mend.
Himself a former Communist Youth Union
leader, Lage said today's Cuban teenagers
were born in the lean years after the Soviet
Union collapsed and generous subsidies and
trade dried up, provoking chronic shortages.
Speaking frankly about the era known as
the "special period," Lage said
the economic deprivations of that time brought
a stark end to the 1980s, when the island
flourished.
"You all were born or grew up when
electricity was out for 10 hours or more
a day, medicines were scare, there was a
dramatic shortage of food, and public transportation
could barely be found, even on the streets
of the capital," he said.
Lage said the limited free-market concessions
the government made then to help stabilize
the economy have since created "bitter
contradictions" and forced Cuban society
"to watch deformities and inequalities
grow."
He acknowleged that the current communist
system was "not as ideal as the one
we wished for, or achieved years ago."
Despite the hardships, and Washington's
45-year-old economic embargo against Cuba,
"the people saved their revolution,
which continues with more strength and pride
than ever," Lage added.
"Even aware of our justified dissatisfaction,
our people today enjoy rights that for billions
of people on the planet aren't even imaginable,"
he said. "Free access to education
and health care from one extreme of the
island to the other. In our country, no
one lacks the opportunity to study, or a
job."
With Raul Castro among those in attendance,
Wednesday's two-hour celebration mixed serious
moments with lighter ones.
Noted Cuban folk singer Silvio Rodriguez
performed several numbers, and at another
point a group of small children danced,
sang and hopped their way across stage,
some wearing bee costumes, others in traditional
Cuban dresses and suits.
Castro chides Bush, Brazil in column
By Anita Snow, Associated
Press Writer Wed Apr 4, 2007.
HAVANA - Ailing leader Fidel Castro returned
to the public debate - if not view - for
the second time in less than a week Wednesday
with a column in the Communist Party newspaper
denouncing U.S. promotion of using food
crops for biofuels.
Castro chided the Bush administration for
its support of ethanol production for automobiles,
a move that the 80-year-old leader said
would leave the world's poor hungry.
It was his second article on the issue
in less than a week, indicating he is increasingly
anxious to have his voice heard on international
matters, eight months after stepping down
as Cuba's president because of illness.
Castro also gently chided leftist ally
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva for his country's ambitious plans
for ethanol production and his cooperation
with Bush in promoting it.
"It is not my intention to harm Brazil,
nor get mixed up in affairs related to the
internal politics of that great country,"
Castro wrote in the article, titled "Reflections
of the Commander in Chief: The Internationalization
of Genocide."
But, he said, key questions remained unanswered
following weekend talks between Silva and
Bush.
"From where and who will they supply
the more than 500 million tons of corn and
other cereals that the United States, Europe
and the rich countries are going to need
to produce the quantity of gallons of ethanol
that the big companies of the United States
and other countries demand in return for
their many investments?" he asked in
the column published in the daily Granma.
The issue has created a genteel tension
in Cuban relations with the government of
Silva, a former labor union organizer who
has a long history of friendly ties with
Cuba's communist leaders.
Brazil's foreign minister, Celso Amorim,
last week responded to Castro's earlier
criticism of biofuels by expressing personal
respect but saying, "he has some ideas
that are outdated."
Silva's top aide on international affairs,
Marco Aurelio Garcia, said Wednesday the
Brazilian president had no intention of
transforming the country's ethanol plans
into an ideological debate. Silva remains
"obsessed" with the idea of biofuels
and his belief that income from their production
can benefit Brazil's poor, Garcia said.
Cuba itself has experimented with using
sugar cane for ethanol production.
But now that the United States has embraced
the idea, Castro and his Venezuelan ally
Hugo Chavez have expressed concern that
rich countries will buy up the food crops
of poor nations to meet their energy needs,
threatening millions with starvation.
Brazil is a major ethanol producer, while
Venezuela has the hemisphere's largest oil
reserves. On Wednesday, Brazil and Ecuador
signed agreements for the two countries
to jointly produce biofuels and explore
for oil in Ecuador.
The issue could arise again when Silva
and Chavez meet for an energy summit on
Venezuela's Margarita Island April 16-17.
Other South American leaders have been invited,
but have not yet confirmed.
Meanwhile, Castro - who senior officials
say is on the mend - seems ever more likely
to chime in from the sidelines.
On July 31, he temporarily ceded his functions
to his brother Raul, the 75-year-old defense
minister, after announcing he had undergone
emergency intestinal surgery.
Castro's condition and exact ailment remain
a state secret, but he is widely believed
to suffer from diverticular disease, a weakening
of the walls of the colon that can cause
sustained bleeding.
Cuban officials have given increasingly
optimistic reports about his health, and
there is a growing expectation on the island
that he could soon make his first public
appearance since falling ill.
(SUBS graf 13 to correct energy summit
will be held on Margarita Island sted Caracas;
ADDS Ecuador, Brazil to jointly produce
biofuels, explore for oil)
US biofuel policy could spark world
'holocaust': Castro
HAVANA, 4 (AFP) - Fidel Castro on Wednesday
warned that US energy policies could spark
a global "holocaust," in his second
newspaper column in a week, a hint the Cuban
leader is recovering his feisty self.
Castro said making fuel from grain would
divert food from the world's poor in order
to satisfy the demands of drivers in wealthy
countries.
"The worst may yet be to come: a new
war to ensure gas and oil supplies, which
could consume the entire human race in a
total holocaust," Castro wrote in the
Cuban Communist Party paper, Granma.
The article, titled "The Globalization
of Genocide," condemned US President
George W. Bush for pushing the global production
of grain-based alternative fuels.
It continued the theme of a March 29 article
in which Castro said Bush's promotion of
ethanol was putting "more than three
billion people" at risk of starvation.
The newspaper columns are another sign
that the 80-year-old Cuban leader could
be on the road to recovery after eight months
out of the public eye.
In July, Castro handed over power to his
brother Raul, the country's defense minister,
following gastrointestinal surgery.
In the Granma article on Wednesday, Castro
took note of recent discussions Bush held
with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva on promoting biofuels.
"Who will supply the more than 500
million tonnes of corn and other cereals
that the United States, Europe and the rich
countries need to produce all the ethanol
that the big US companies demand?"
"Where will the poor countries of
the Third World obtain the minimal resources
to survive?" Castro asked.
Bush "declared his intention to apply
this formula around the world, which means
only the globalization of genocide,"
he said.
"It is not my intention to harm Brazil,
nor interfere in the domestic affairs of
this great country," he wrote, without
mentioning US-Brazilian cooperation on ethanol
production, in which Brazil is a global
leader.
Lula's top international adviser, Marco
Aurelio Garcia, called Castro's criticism
a product of "faulty understanding."
"World hunger is not a problem of
food shortages, it is problem of a lack
of profitability," Garcia said. Besides,
he said, Brazil's agricultural land will
not be used for biofuels.
"We do not want to turn ethanol into
an ideological problem."
US ethanol is distilled mostly from corn,
the price of which is at its highest in
decades, while Brazil's ethanol is based
on sugarcane.
Castro's article came on the heels of a
new US study that showed the boom in ethanol
fuels in the United States and elsewhere
could have devastating effects on food prices
and worsen world hunger.
C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer of the
University of Minnesota wrote in the May/June
edition of Foreign Affairs published Tuesday
that the rush into ethanol threatens to
divert massive amounts of corn and other
food crops into biofuels.
Cuba produces ethanol and is planning to
cooperate with Venezuela on large-scale
biofuels production -- but from sugarcane
waste, to spare food crops.
Castro's two articles in recent days came
after increasingly frequent comments by
Cuban officials and Castro's friends that
he is recovering from his surgery, which
has never been disclosed in detail. Cuba
considers Castro's health a national security
issue.
Several officials have said over the past
month that they expected him to return to
work soon, and even stand for re-election
to the presidency in early 2008.
The leader of this Caribbean nation of
11 million for nearly five decades wrote
in Granma that he had spent his eight-month
recuperation mulling global problems like
energy, the environment and the survival
of mankind.
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