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Yahoo!
February 6, 2003.
Cuban News Agency Names New President
HAVANA, 5 (AP) - Francisco Gonzalez, one of four Cuban diplomats the U.S.
government expelled for allegedly acting outside their official capacity, is the
new president of Cuba's Prensa Latina news agency.
The Havana-based international agency announced in a short dispatch late
Tuesday that Gonzalez would replace Pedro Margolles, who directed the news
service for 18 years. Margolles' new position in the agency will be announced
later.
Gonzalez was a counselor at Cuba's U.N. mission in November when the U.S.
government expelled him and a second secretary at the mission for "engaging
in activities deemed to be harmful to the United States."
At the same time, the State Department expelled two Washington-based Cuban
diplomats for allegedly supporting an American intelligence officer sentenced to
25 years in prison for spying for Cuba.
Cuba's Foreign Ministry called the charges unfounded and said it had its own
proof of inappropriate activities by American officials at the U.S. Interests
Section in Havana.
Gonzalez, 52, joined Prensa Latina in 1972 and worked as a correspondent in
Jamaica and Colombia. He became vice president for information in 1994. In the
late 1990s, Gonzalez directed the International Press Center in Havana, which
oversees accreditation of foreign journalists in Cuba.
Germany rankles after Rumsfeld groups it with Libya and Cuba as Iraq war
opponents
By Tony Czuczka, Associated Press Writer
BERLIN, 5 (AP) - After Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld lumped Germany
in with Libya and Cuba as die-hard opponents of war on Iraq, the German
opposition accused Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Thursday of isolating the
country with his anti-war stance.
Rumsfeld's remark in congressional testimony Wednesday was his latest slap
at Schroeder's left-leaning government, which has refused to contribute German
troops to an Iraq war and has made plain it won't back a war authorization in
the United Nations.
While deploring Rumsfeld's tone, the conservative opposition gladly seized
on the remark to criticize Schroeder.
"One doesn't always have to like the American rhetoric," Wolfgang
Schaeuble, a lawmaker and former leader of the main opposition Christian
Democrats, said on MDR radio. "But the fact is that, unfortunately, that is
how we are behaving."
"Alarm bells should ring in Berlin when Germany is placed on the same
level as countries like Cuba and Libya," said Michael Glos, parliamentary
leader of the Bavaria-based Christian Social Union.
Taking up the refrain of the conservatives who were narrowly defeated by
Schroeder on an anti-war platform in last year's election, he accused the
chancellor of leading Germany into diplomatic isolation.
Rumsfeld was asked at the congressional hearing what kind of cooperation the
Bush administration could expect from other nations in the event of a war. He
listed several he considered supportive and others he thought might come around
to backing the operation.
"And then there are three or four countries that have said they won't
do anything. I believe Libya, Cuba and Germany are the ones that I have
indicated won't help in any respect," Rumsfeld told the House Armed
Services Committee.
The Berlin government had no immediate response to Rumsfeld, who angered
many in Germany and France last month by describing those countries as problem
allies symbolizing "old Europe."
Winfried Nachtwei, a lawmaker from the Greens, Schroeder's junior coalition
partner, called Rumsfeld's remark "out of line" and urged him to tone
down his rhetoric. | 
