Judge lifts restraining order that stopped Abu Wa'el Dhiab being force-fed because of the 'very real probability that Mr Dhiab will die' Yasiin Bey, aka Mos Def, force-fed, Guantánamo-style US acknowledges secret force-feeding tapes A federal judge has lifted a temporary restraining order that had stopped the US military from force feeding a hunger-striking prisoner at Guantanamo Bay naval base, saying...
Judge says Abu Wa'el Dhiab's lawyers can view secret footage 'Pretend it's 1955 that's where the technology is' lawyer A federal court has forced the US government to reveal that it has secretly recorded dozens of force-feedings of just one Guantánamo Bay detainee, raising the prospect that the military possesses a vast video library of a practice criticised as abusive. On Wednesday, a federal...
Former bodyguard Juan Reinaldo Sánchez writes that leader ran country like a cross between medieval overlord and Louis XV Fidel Castro lived like a king with his own private yacht, a luxury Caribbean island getaway complete with dolphins and a turtle farm, and travelled with two personal blood donors, a new book claims. In La Vie Cachée de Fidel Castro (Fidel Castro's Hidden Life), former bodyguard...
Pyongyang's embassy instrumental in facilitating arms deals and circumventing sanctions, according to UN. NK News reports The Presidium of the Supreme Peoples Assembly North Koreas legislature has confirmed the appointment of Pak Chang-yul as the Democratic Peoples Republic of Koreas new ambassador to the Republic of Cuba, North Korea's official news agency KCNA reported Saturday . The DPRK-Cuba relationship...
Yoani Sánchez's online publication called 14ymedio will challenge communist-ruled country's state-controlled media Cuba's prize-winning blogger, Yoani Sánchez, is launching the island's first independent digital newspaper next week to challenge the communist-ruled country's state-controlled media. Sánchez said the online publication will be named 14ymedio, in honour of the year of its...
Detainees' letters claim US keeps numbers artificially low US admits it has recorded video of Guantánamo force-feedings Recent letters written by Guantánamo Bay detainees on hunger strike accuse the US military of manipulating data about the strike and using force-feeding techniques as a method of punishment. Letters from a Yemeni detainee, Emad Hassan, and a Saudi former resident of the UK,...
Rachel Kushner's first novel, a deeply evocative missive from 50s Cuba, finds a UK publisher on the back of the success of The Flamethrowers Rachel Kushner 's first novel originally published in 2008, before The Flamethrowers , but only now being released in the UK is a deeply evocative work, a recreation of a world now lost. Set in the 1950s, in Cuba's Oriente province, it chiefly concerns a community...
US confirms 8 May meeting in Havana Cuba says four men were planning 'terrorist actions' US diplomats confirmed on Saturday that Cuban officials have given them some information about four Florida residents who were arrested on suspicion of preparing attacks against military installations on the island. The US Interests Section in Havana issued a statement confirming the 8 May meeting with representatives...
Papa, about friendship between author and journalist, is first big Hollywood movie to be filmed on island in more than 50 years The rum, the sun, the rum, the fishing, the rum there was almost nothing that Ernest Hemingway didn't like about Cuba, which was his home from 1939 to 1960 when he heard that Fidel Castro's new revolutionary government might be confiscating all American property. The cult...
The story of the US writer's friendship with a young journalist, starring Adrian Sparks and Giovanni Ribisi, receives exemption from America's six-decade embargo A forthcoming biopic of Ernest Hemingway has become the first full length Hollywood feature film to shoot in Cuba since the 1959 revolution, according to the Hollywood Reporter . Continue reading... ...
Cuban first vice-president says former leader 'feels the loss of his friends', after Castro's silence fuels rumours about his own health Fidel Castro was hit hard by last week's death of long-time friend and Nobel prize-winning Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez , Cuba's first vice-president said on Friday. Speaking in Havana as he signed a book of condolence at the Colombian embassy,...
Kushner's first novel is an epic and enjoyable look at wealth tainted by loss in expatriate Cuba In Rachel Kushner's second novel The Flamethrowers , a woman comes off a motorbike at 140mph and is not killed. She does not break a single bone. She has also as though by accident set the record for the fastest woman on the planet. Reno is the opposite of a tragic heroine;...
Photographs from the Guardian Eyewitness series Continue reading... ...
Press probes defection of Cuban star with league's richest team Source: stories could attract interest of federal authorities David Lengel on Puig, the Dodgers and more in MLB this week As one of the most volatile players in baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Yasiel Puig was already synonymous with drama. Every time he stepped on to the field fans held their breath, unsure if they were about...
Country's condom providers cannot match demand, reports say, as residents search the island for dwindling supply From potatoes to deodorant, toilet paper and bottled beer, Cubans have come to accept chronic shortages as an inevitable part of life after more than half a century of communist rule. Now a shrinking supply of condoms has upset residents of the Caribbean island nation and alarmed health...
Singer Shakira joins presidents of Colombia and Mexico, as well as Bill Clinton, in paying tribute to Nobel prize-winner The death of Latin American literary giant Gabriel García Márquez prompted immediate reaction from across the continent and beyond, almost as soon as the first rumours hit the internet early on Thursday afternoon. Politicians weighed in quickly with Juan Manuel Santos,...
Judge James Pohl orders agency to produce detailed account of its detention of USS Cole bombing suspect at secret prison A judge overseeing the trials of terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay has ordered the CIA to turn over details of its treatment of a detainee in one of its secret prisons, a watershed ruling that sets the stage for the military commissions to learn much more than the US public...
Foreign relations committee asks for all records Users in Cuba did not know origin of social-media network The Senate foreign relations committee on Thursday asked the US Agency for International Development (USAid) to turn over all records about the Obama administration's secret Cuban twitter programme , as part of a broader review of the agency's civil-society efforts worldwide. The request included...
Aamer is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after years of torture at Guantánamo Bay. We must secure his release back to the UK Two nights ago I watched The Railway Man at a local film festival. Afterwards, one of the writers, Andy Paterson, was being interviewed by Jon Ronson, the curator of the event. They discussed how Colin Firth's character, Eric Lomax , had suffered from post-traumatic...
Lawyers for Shaker Aamer, cleared for release by US seven years ago and never charged with a crime, ask for his release The last British resident detained at Guantánamo Bay is suffering from a potentially life-threatening medical condition as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, and should be returned urgently to his family in London, his lawyers have argued. Shaker Aamer, who was cleared...