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US governor touches down in Cuba on trade mission

HAVANA, 14 (AFP) - The Republican governor from the US farm state of Nebraska, Dave Heineman, arrived in Cuba with a trade delegation hoping to secure export deals for his state's agricultural products.

Heineman and a 10-member delegation, including business executives, are due to remain in Cuba through to Wednesday. The US delegation will hold talks with officials from the Cuban state importer Alimport.

"The state of Nebraska is well-known for good quality agricultural products and Alimport hopes to advance commercial relations," Alimport said in a statement.

The US delegation will also be exploring opportunities to sell medical equipment to the Communist-ruled Caribbean island despite President Fidel Castro's thorny relations with Washington.

The United States has had an embargo against Cuba for 40 years, but the administration of President George W. Bush in 2001 exempted food and medicines.

A statement on governor Heineman's website said potential purchases of corn, soybeans, wheat, pork and beef would be discussed.

The US exported 400 million dollars in agricultural products to Cuba last year.

Cuba Marks Castro's 79th Birthday

By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press Writer, August 13, 2005.

HAVANA - Cuba honored President Fidel Castro's 79th birthday Saturday, revisiting his nearly five decades in power on the communist island with tributes in state-run newspapers and documentaries.

Dozens of Cuban children danced and cut an enormous blue-and-white cake for Castro - the world's longest-ruling head of government - while front pages bore his photo and loving words.

"We celebrate as your own, with the affection and immense admiration that children feel for the most noble, wise and brave father," a letter to the "Comandante" said on the front page of the Communist Party daily Granma.

Signed "your people," the letter called the president the "dearly loved Fidel" and highlighted his "special sensitivity for others" and "guerrilla spirit of just ideals."

Just after midnight Friday, those attending a youth congress in Caracas, Venezuela, sang "Happy Birthday" to Castro, who sent a message of thanks and said he was watching the gathering on television.

The Cuban leader is an active 79. He maintains a busy schedule - including frequent speeches that can stretch to six or seven hours - and has shown no interest in retiring.

A documentary shown in an Old Havana theater Saturday displayed some of Castro's most impassioned public speeches, from his assumption of power in early 1959, through the Cuban Missile Crisis and fall of the Berlin Wall, to more recent remarks justifying socialism against the threats of capitalist superpowers like the United States.

Though Castro clearly ages throughout Rebeca Chavez's "Momentos con Fidel," or "Moments with Fidel," he also maintains his characteristic intensity throughout the decades, walking briskly, and pounding tables and wagging his finger when speaking.

"This revolution will leave indelible footprints in the history of the world," the leader said on May Day, 2004. Earlier, a younger Castro says, "They can hate us, but they also must admire us. We never bow down."

His battles have been many, and with the arrival of his 79th birthday came yet another victory - this time in the form of a U.S. appeals court decision that ordered a new trial in the high-profile case of five alleged Cuban spies.

Citing prejudicial publicity, the ruling last Tuesday threw out the convictions and ordered the men be tried somewhere other than Miami, where Cuban emigres abound and anti-Castro sentiment runs high. Granma pointed out that one of the men, Rene Gonzalez, shares Castro's birthday.

The ruling gave Castro a boost as Cubans face tough domestic problems, including a housing crisis and an antiquated electrical grid that caused frequent and stifling power outages earlier this summer.

Despite some public dissatisfaction, there was little doubt that Castro remains firmly in control of the last communist state in the Americas and one of only five in the world. The others are China, Vietnam, North Korea and Laos.

Born in eastern Cuba's sugar country where his Spanish immigrant father ran a prosperous plantation, Fidel Castro Ruz's official birthday is Aug. 13, 1926, although some say he was born a year later. His designated successor has always been his brother, Defense Secretary Raul Castro, five years his junior.

Castro appears to maintain good health despite occasional rumors of illness and a fall last year that shattered a kneecap and broke his right arm. He used a wheelchair for several months.

Castro urges US to free suspected Cuban spies

HAVANA, 14 (AFP) - President Fidel Castro managed to speak by telephone with a suspected Cuban spy jailed in the United States and urged Washington to free the man and four others whose US convictions were recently overturned, official media said.

Castro was meeting with the family of the five imprisoned Cubans Saturday when one of the men was allowed to call his wife in Havana, official media said. Castro, who was celebrating his 79th birthday, spoke with the prisoner, Gerardo Hernandez.

The communist leader told Hernandez the decision by a US appeals court to overturn the convictions was a "triumph of the truth and in the best tradition of the American people," according to Cuban media.

"The best they could do would be to free you or try you, which would be worse for them," Castro said.

Hernandez was arrested in Florida in 1998 along with Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez, Fernando Gonzalez Llort, Ramon Labanino Salazar and Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert.

They were accused of monitoring US military installations, including the US Southern Command headquarters and a Key West, Florida air base, and infiltrating Cuban-American exile groups.

They were convicted of spying in 2001. Three of the men were sentenced to life in prison, one to 19 years and the fifth to 15 years.

Cuba has admitted they were Cuban agents but said they were only spying on Cuban-American exiles in Miami plotting against Cuba, not on the United States.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, ruled on Tuesday that the five men could not get a fair trial in Miami, home to many Cuban exiles who hate Castro's regime. It overturned the convictions and ordered that the new trial take place outside Miami.

Cuba's Menendez Sets World Javelin Record

AP via Yahoo! Asia News, August 14, 2005.

Osleidys Menendez of Cuba set a world record in the women's javelin with a throw of 235 feet, 3 inches Sunday at the world track and field championships.

Menedez broke her own world record of 234-8 on her first attempt. The Cuban set the previous record in 2001.

Castro reaches 79 still driving Cuba's revolution

HAVANA, 13 (AFP) - Fidel Castro turned 79, regaining strength from a close alliance with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that also helps him keep the United States at bay and ignore dissident voices.

The world's longest serving leader and the head of the only communist nation in the Americas remains as defiant as ever in believing that Marxist Leninist thought is the only way forward though he has reconciled with the Roman Catholic church.

Castro, who proved his political might when he led the Cuban revolution 46 years ago, has made a steady recovery from a fall last October that left him with a broken left knee and a fractured right arm that does not seem so mobile when he gives his four-hour televised speeches.

But he has been more active, giving 38 televised speeches so far this year against about 15 for all of 2004.

The arrival of left wing governments in Brazil, Uruguay and Ecuador and his ever-closer friendship with Chavez, head of the so-called Bolivarian revolution in his own country, has allowed the Cuban president to renew his old dream of a revolutionary alliance against the US influence in the region.

Castro appears to be a mentor of the former Venezuelan military officer with an increasingly left wing vision of world affairs.

Cuba and Venezuela have stepped up bilateral cooperation -- signing 50 accords in April alone that were a huge help to Castro in easing the worsening economic conditions for the island's 11.5 million people.

They would like to turn it into a regional trade agreement, also named after revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar, to rival the free trade accord being pressed by the United States for the Americas.

Castro presided over the graduation ceremony for the latest promotion of officers from the Venezuelan war college in a ceremony in Havana this month. The Cuban president met more Venezuelan officers this week.

Venezuela now provides desperately needed cheap oil for their Cuban comrades who suffer badly from an antiquated power grid that is always breaking down.

Castro has taken advantage of the alliance to reassure his people many times that the economy is getting better. At the end of July he trumpeted a surprise growth figure of 7.3 percent since the start of 2005 with a prediction of 9.0 percent by the end of the year -- almost identical to China.

Economists have been stunned as Cuba has been stricken by a severe drought and Hurricane Dennis last year left damage estimated to have cost 1.4 billion dollars.

China has also been a help, making several economic accords last year. Castro has since tightened state control of the economy, ending hundreds of contracts with foreign enterprises started since a minor opening up in the 1990s.

The dollar has been taken out of legal circulation, while the peso, which used to be given an equal valuation to the greenback, has now been revalued by eight percent.

Dissidents have sought to take advantage of a growing unhappiness at the hardships the population faces. There was a rare demonstration on July 22 and Castro did not appreciate the move. The police carried out the biggest crackdown on opponents of the communist government since the roundup of 75 dissidents in April 2003. About 15 remain in jail.

Friday, Castro supporters gathered outside the home of opponents such as Vladimiro Roca to jeer them, and stopped them staging a new act of defiance against the government.

In May, dissidents held a landmark first national assembly, bringing 160 delegates from all over Cuba for a two-day meeting near Havana that unfolded without interference from Castro's regime.

Castro maintains that the dissidents are financed and directed from the US diplomatic Interests Section in Havana. They deny it.

Next year, Castro will again become leader of the Non-Aligned Movement for three years. That will give him a new opportunity to make digs at US President George W. Bush on the international stage.

His latest publicity coup has come, however, from a US court which this week ruled that the trial of five accused Cuban spies in 2001 was unfair and should be staged again. The five, who had been sentenced to long prison terms, have again become heroes of the tightly controlled Cuban media.

Castro supporters mob dissident homes

HAVANA, 12 (Agencies) - Supporters of Fidel Castro staged angry demonstrations outside the homes of two dissidents on Friday in response to the Cuban leader's call to block opposition activity, according to Reuters.

About 100 people chanted "Fidel, Fidel" outside the home of leading dissident Vladimiro Roca and prevented members of his Todos Unidos opposition group from entering the house to gather for a meeting. A second crowd, singing happy birthday to Castro, prevented fellow dissident Leon Padron from leaving his home.

"The only meeting here is ours," Juan Laguna, a 70-year-old Communist Party militant. Speakers heckled Roca from a microphone and speaker set up across the street for the rally, which was organized by party officials using walkie-talkies, says Reuters.

"This is like a fascist lynching from the days of Hitler and Mussolini," said Roca.

Veteran human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez, was heading for the meeting when he was stopped. Sanchez said the government was becoming more repressive in the face of growing dissent and widespread discontent with Cuba's economic woes.

Three weeks ago, police rounded up 33 dissidents, nine of whom are still being held without charges, and party militants blocked others in their homes to prevent a protest outside the French Embassy.

Group in D.C. to Support Jailed Reporter

By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer. August 10, 2005.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Press freedom advocates normally direct their wrath toward countries where harassment or abuse of journalists is the norm. Lately they have come up with a new target: the United States.

On Wednesday, a delegation from the Inter-American Press Association, a Western Hemisphere watchdog group, was making a pilgrimage to Washington to show solidarity with Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who has been jailed since July 6.

An evening meeting with Miller was planned at the Alexandria (Va.) Detention Center, where she was being held for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.

The mission is led by Alejo Miro Quesada, president of the IAPA and El Comercio, a Peruvian daily. The IAPA also planned to meet with the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., to discuss a proposal before Congress meant to enable journalists to keep sources confidential.

Accompanying Miro Quesada is Gonzalo Marroquin, director of Prensa Libre of Guatemala and chairman of IAPA's Freedom of the Press Committee; Diana Daniels of The Washington Post, and IAPA vice president Julio Munoz, executive director of IAPA.

In addition to the Miller case, the IAPA has followed the problems of Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, who came close to being locked up for activities related to the Plame case.

The United States frequently criticizes infringements on press freedom in other countries. Recent U.S. critiques have been directed at Russia, China, Cuba and Venezuela.

The IAPA has a long history of acting to protect press freedom in the Western Hemisphere. Recently, it has focused on the murders of two journalists in Mexico and the disappearance of a third. It also has been dealing with new laws in Venezuela that could impair press freedom and is working on Cuba's imprisonment of more than 20 journalists.

Joining the IAPA in condemning the treatment of Miller was another pro-press freedom group, Reporters Without Borders. It decried her arrest as "a serious violation of international law, a dangerous precedent. The United States has sent a very bad signal to the rest of the world."

The case also has caught the attention of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an arm of the Organization of American States.

"It is imperative that journalists retain the right to confidentiality of sources," a release from the organization said, alluding to the Miller case.

On the Net: Inter-American Press Association site: http://www.sipiapa.org/default.cfm

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