CUBAN AMERICANS SECTION - Havana Journal > Cuban American Politics
By CURT ANDERSON | Associated Press
(original title: Judge: Cuba must pay $27.5M for jailing journalist)
MIAMI — A federal judge ordered the Cuban government and the ruling Communist Party on Wednesday to pay $27.5 million in damages to the mother of a journalist jailed since a 2003 crackdown on dissent.
U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold ruled in the case of Omar Rodriguez Saludes, who is serving a 27-year sentence in Cuban prisons that the judge described as “deplorable and degrading” in his 13-page order.
“During his imprisonment, he has been beaten, starved, given poor food, placed in solitary…
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By MIKE SCHNEIDER | Associated Press
Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida said Friday he will resign from the Senate as soon as a replacement can be appointed, leaving the seat more than a year before his term ends.
Martinez, the only Hispanic Republican in the Senate, revealed his plans in a statement to supporters and was expected to publicly announce the decision Friday afternoon in Florida.
The first-term senator already had announced in December that he would not seek re-election in 2010, but he had fended off rumors that he would give up the seat early.
His decision puts…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
Megan Williams, the Director/Producer of Tell Me Cuba sent me the DVD and asked me to have a look at it. We had a brief phone conversation but we did not talk about politics too much so I wasn’t sure which way the film would lean. Of course I was assuming there would be a “leaning” since the subject matter is Cuba. So, I began to watch the DVD with an open mind looking for the leaning.
The documentary leads off with a brief overview of the history of…
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By Saul Landau | Progreso Weekly
(This conversation took place on April 1, 2009. Our film crew received Justice Department approval to talk with “the prisoner,” with a prison official in the room. Before his 1998 arrest, Gerardo directed the operations of the other Cuban State Security agents who infiltrated violent groups in the Miami area for the purposes of stopping them from carrying out terrorist attacks on tourist sites in Cuba. We took complete and…
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Damien Cave | Miami Herald
A 14-page proposal from the Cuban American National Foundation lays out what the document calls “a break from the past” that would “chart a new direction for U.S.-Cuba policy.”
It is the basis of an ongoing discussion with the Obama administration, White House and foundation officials said, and it amounts to the group’s most significant rejection of a national approach to Cuba that it helped shape and that has been defined by hostility and limited contact with the island.
Foundation officials described it as an effort to direct attention away from Fidel and Raúl Castro…
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Patrick Doherty | The Havana Note
Senator Menendez, the Dike has Burst
There he was, Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, holding forth from the well of the Senate making his Alamo stand against some very innocuous provisions to allow Cuban-American family members travel to Cuba and for American agricultural producers to carry out the business they already do with Cuba more efficiently during a time of economic recession.
Most analysts I speak with say this was a picture of a man trying to put his finger in a dike,…
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University of Miami Cuba Transition Project email
The Honorable Carlos Gutiérrez, former Secretary of Commerce under the George W. Bush administration, has been named a non-resident scholar at the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS).
Gutierrez will be based in Washington, D.C. and from there will help ICCAS’ Cuba Business Roundtable (CBR), an ongoing program that recruits businesses who are interested in information and professional advice on Cuba to be ready to do business in a post-embargo, post-Castro Cuba. He will also serve as keynote speaker in ICCAS’ Cuba Transition Project seminars in Eastern Europe, Latin…
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AP
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON and MARK WANGRIN | Associated Press Writers
U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, who has struggled to boost public support because of his close ties to President George W. Bush, announced Tuesday he will not seek a second term in 2010, saying he wants to spend more time with his family.
The Republican pushed an immigration reform bill that was unpopular with many in his party, and his seat was widely seen as vulnerable in two years. However, Martinez rejected suggestions he faced difficult re-election prospects in a state won last month…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
Read this article then read my comments at the bottom.
By Carol J. Williams | Los Angeles Times
Bernardo Benes is plotting to reprise his role as broker of the one humanitarian breakthrough in U.S.-Cuban relations in the 50 years since Fidel Castro’s revolution came to power.
Benes, who negotiated the 1978 release of 3,600 political prisoners and the right for Cuban exiles to visit family on the communist island, plans a freelance mission to his homeland to sound out President Raul Castro on what the Havana regime wants from President-elect Barack Obama.
“I…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
Email received from Joe Garcia campaign:
With just 48 hours until the polls close, this is our final push, and we know we’re in the position to win this race.
But it is all going to come down to our final push.
We need your help to get out the vote:
1) First and foremost, plan to join us at our FINAL Canvass on Monday evening. Our entire campaign team will be joined by a crowd of volunteers and supporters that have come in from all over the country to help win what is being…
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