Alan Gross arrested in 2009 and is serving 15-year sentence Gross on hunger strike protesting inaction by White House Allegations that 'Secret Twitter' program endangered Gross' life The Obama administration was accused on Tuesday of abandoning a US aid worker imprisoned in Cuba and of endangering his life by running a cockamamie program to create a Twitter-like network on the island nation. Senator...
American, 64, arrested in 2009 while while working for USAid Case comes amid dispute over US-created 'Cuban Twitter' An American man who has been imprisoned in Cuba for more than four years is on a hunger strike, according to a statement released by his lawyer on Tuesday. Alan Gross, 64, said he began fasting to protest his treatment by the governments of both Cuba and the United States. He said he...
Rajiv Shah to appear before a US government panel questioning his agency's secret social media programme The administrator of the US agency for international development will appear before a US government panel questioning his agency's secret 'Cuban Twitter' a social media network allegedly built to stir domestic unrest. Rajiv Shah will face a first round of questioning from Democratic Senator Patrick...
World Series of Boxing meeting was first of home-and-away series between the US Knockouts and the Cuba Wranglers On Friday night, boxers from the US and Cuba went glove-to-glove on Cuban soil for the first time in 27 years, in a semiprofessional World Series of Boxing meeting that in many ways resembled a big-time Las Vegas bout. Cuba won the bouts 5-0, with one knockout and four technical decisions....
Finding that program funded by USAid could be damaging to groups working to increase access to technology, say analysts The revelation that a US government-funded program set up a cellphone-based social network in Cuba is likely to pose new challenges for independent bloggers and exile groups that work to increase access to technology. Yoani Sanchez, the island's most prominent dissident, began her...
31 March - 4 April: Read up on the week's winners, losers, controversies and reports Satinah , an Indonesian maid who has been spared from execution in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of murdering her employer. Satinah said she hit her employer, Nura al-Garib, in self-defence . Multimedia Global development reading list It's World Health Day on Monday, and this year's theme is vector-borne diseases....
State news agency aligns covert ZunZuneo programme with other 'anti-Cuban' plots including failed Bay of Pigs invasion Revelations of a secret US government programme to set up a cellphone-based social network in Cuba are being trumpeted in the island's official media as proof of Havana's repeated allegations that Washington is waging a "cyber-war" to try to stir up unrest. "ZunZuneo...
USAid started ZunZuneo, a social network built on texts, in hope it could be used to organize 'smart mobs' to trigger Cuban spring In July 2010, Joe McSpedon, a US government official, flew to Barcelona to put the final touches on a secret plan to build a social media project aimed at undermining Cuba's communist government. McSpedon and his team of high-tech contractors had come in from Costa Rica...
Associated Press reveals attempt to foment protests in Cuba Spokesman: USAid project was 'development assistance' The White House is claiming that a secret programme to build a carefully-disguised Cuban Twitter, in order to foment political opposition to the Castro regime, was not covert but rather a discreet form of humanitarian assistance. Attempts by Barack Obamas administration to downplay the...
UN human rights committee raises concerns over torture, drone strikes, the death penalty and NSA data collection The UN has delivered a withering verdict on the US's human rights record, raising concerns on a series of issues including torture, drone strikes, the failure to close Guantánamo Bay and the NSA's bulk collection of personal data. The report was delivered by the UN's human rights...
World Trade Organisation has now allowed five countries to appeal against cigarette labelling legislation The World Trade Organisation has granted Indonesia the right to challenge Australias plain packaging laws in front of a panel of trade and legal experts, trade sources say. Indonesia and a number of other countries before it are seeking to challenge the legislation which has required all cigarettes...
Belbacha has been transferred to custody of Algerian government after being held for 12 years without charge A Guantánamo Bay detainee who is fighting a legal battle against US authorities over force-feeding at the detention centre has been released after being held for more than a decade without charge, the American government has announced. Ahmed Belbacha was first cleared for release in 2007 by...
As the state loosens its grip on food production, Cuban farmers and independent co-operatives will need support to help solve the country's agriculture crisis Last year, Cuba spent over $1.6bn (£1bn) on food imports , an unsustainable amount for an economy that has been struggling since the end of the cold war and the collapse of its trading partner, the Soviet Union, through which it also lost 80%...
s difficult to stop at home Little more than a week after 9/11, Cofer Black gave instructions to his CIA team before their mission. "I don't want Bin Laden and his thugs captured, I want them dead … I want to see photos of their heads on pikes. I want Bin Laden's head shipped back in a box filled with dry ice. I want to show Bin Laden's head to the president. I promised him I would do that." A...
s decision to refuse a visa to René González. René was to be the principal witness for the International Commission of Inquiry into the case of the Miami Five, taking place at the Law Society this weekend. René served 15 years...
s Cuba, Huber Matos, who has died aged 95, was a former guerrilla comandante turned anti-Castro activist. When the Cuban revolutionary war broke out in the late 1950s, Matos was already nearly 40. As a teacher in a provincial school and a small-scale rice farmer, he scarcely fitted the profile of a guerrilla leader, and was certainly no communist. In those days, however, nor was the rebel leader Fidel...
Singer attends Havana Cigar Festival auction for first time and sees humidor of Montechristo cigars fetch $235,000 ...
s defence minister announced plans to expand Russia's worldwide military presence. The Viktor Leonov SSV-175, part of the Vishnya class of intelligence ships, quietly entered Cuban waters this week and docked at a cruise ship terminal on Thursday, its crew casually taking in the view of the old colonial section of the Cuban capital as passersby looked on in surprise. Russian warships have come and...
Five men, who were convicted in 2001 in Miami on conspiracy charges, were part of the ‘Wasp Network’ sent by Fidel Castro to spy in South Florida ...
International commission of inquiry into five Cuban men jailed for spying in 2001 to be held at Law Society in London from 7-8 March The details for the international commission of inquiry into the case of the "Miami five" to be held at the Law Society next month have now been finalised. Among those giving evidence will be René González, the only member of the five Cuban men jailed for spying to have...