Washington (CNN)The mysterious sonic attack on US diplomats stationed in Cuba is raising questions about weapons that sound more like something out of James Bond than reality.
The US believes sophisticated devices that operated outside the range of audible sound were deployed either inside or outside diplomats’ residences in Havana, injuring at least 16 Americans, several senior State Department officials have told CNN.
The attacks, which began in November and ended this spring, left some with mild traumatic brain injury; two might have permanent hearing loss. And the invisible assaults may be continuing against other targets, with Canadian diplomats and their family members reporting similar symptoms in June. : Read Complete Report
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Cuban Government Denies Involvement In Diplomats’ ‘Mysterious Symptoms’
Moving swiftly, US eases travel and trade rules on Cuba
AP By BRADLEY KLAPPER and MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN January 16, 2015 9:52 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration, following through on its declaration of warming ties with Cuba, has eased travel restrictions and opened a wide range of new export opportunities with the communist island.
The series of executive branch moves, taken together, have had the effect of punching a large hole in America’s half-century-old embargo, although only Congress has the authority to fully end the 54-year embargo. President Barack Obama announced last month that he would soften the restrictions, and a new set of government regulations took effect Friday. . . . Read Complete Report
By Emily Lenihan, News 4 Digital ProducerPublished: Updated:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is putting a large dent in the U.S. embargo against Cuba as of Friday, significantly loosening restrictions on American trade and investment.
The new rules also open up the communist island to greater American travel and allow U.S. citizens to start bringing home small amounts of Cuban cigars after more than a half-century ban. . . . Read Complete Report
Cuban Laws May Have Changed, But the Jokes Haven’t
Excerpts
“. . . It has been over four years since I sat in those orchestra seats, and much has changed in Cuba. In recent months — between a New York Times op-ed calling for an end to the U.S. embargo and news of Cuban doctors aiding in the Ebola crisis — developments on the island have been particularly present in international media. Just Tuesday, The Associated Press ran a story on Cuba’s rarely discussed television programming. . . .
“. . . Despite the 2013 travel reform, around 25,000 Cubans fled the island by sea in the 2014 fiscal year, the highest number since Castro became president in 2008. Many Cubans cannot afford the visas and plane tickets needed for official travel, reported The New York Times, and conditions on the island are so poor that thousands are willing to risk their lives to make it to the U.S. . . .” . . . Read Complete Report
Both Parties Traditionally Court State’s Large Cuban-American Community—Now With Heightened Importance
For decades, Democrats and Republicans with sights on the White House have trekked to the heart of the Cuban-American community in Florida to declare their support for the U.S. trade embargo against the island. No candidate has won the state otherwise.
This staple of presidential politics in the nation’s largest swing state is taking on heightened importance as the 2016 presidential field takes shape. . . . Read Complete Report
From Bellingham Herald BY JUAN O. TAMAYO El Nuevo Herald January 3, 2014
EXCERPTS
“MIAMI — Cuban police seized hundreds of toys from dissidents in a string of raids early Friday described by a pro-government blogger as a crackdown on a planned “provocation” – giving the toys, paid for by Miami exiles, to children.. . .
. . . “Belkis Cantillo, head of the Ladies in White in eastern Cuba, told El Nuevo Herald that she and 11 group members were staging a sit-in Friday in a house in Palmarito “to demand the return of what they (police) stole from us today.”. . . Read Complete Report
Dig a LITTLE DEEPER ~ THEI.us Archive “Cuba Lebre”
Featured Image: JFK motorcade Dallas Texas Nov. 22, 1963 just moments before he was assassinated. SOURCE: Library of Congress. (Public Domain)
Second Image: “Wanted for Treason”. Infamous handbill circulated on November 21, 1963 In Dallas, Texas, one day before John F. Kennedy visited the city and was assassinated. SOURCE Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
Investigative writer Anthony Summers makes a compelling case for a new suspect in the frame for the assassination of President John Kennedy in Dallas in 1963.
EXCERPTS
“Dallas is a hotbed of extreme conservatism, the only major city in America to have voted for Richard Nixon over Kennedy in 1960, and now here the president stands, with a copy of today’s Dallas Morning News. It carries a black-edged advertisement ”welcoming’’ the president, placed by a group calling itself the American Fact-Finding Committee. The ad consists of a list of accusatory questions: why is the Kennedy administration approved of by the US Communist Party? Why is the CIA being asked to arrange coups against Washington’s anti-Communist allies? And so on.
“Jack Kennedy turns to his wife, Jackie. “We’re heading into nut country today,” he says”. . . Read Complete Report
“There is a network of clandestine information, the volume, speed and efficiency of which you cannot imagine. It is not in megabytes or gigabytes but in terrabytes,” Sanchez told a news conference in Geneva.
“One family has an illegal parabolic antenna hidden in a pseudo watertank and can transmit to 200 to 300 families who pay a monthly fee,” said Sanchez, who has pioneered the use of social media to challenge Cuba’s one-party system.” . . . Read Complete Report
BOSTON (AP) — The JFK Library and Museum in Boston has a new exhibit that tells the story of the Cuban missile crisis through once-secret White House recordings and documents. . . . Read Complete Report
Photo: Mural Showing Cuba flag and Che Guevare. SOURCE: Public Domain Images Online
Cuba has accused the U.S. of allowing American companies to “blatantly steal” some of the island’s most important brand names, following a court decision over the famous Cohiba cigar brand. . . . Read Complete Report
Players can fight through the wetlands of the country surrounded by fellow guerrillas to a soundtrack of gunshot
Cuban programmers have unveiled a new 3D video game that puts a distinctly revolutionary twist on gaming, letting players recreate decisive clashes from the 1959 uprising in which many of their grandparents fought.
Fight your way through swamps shoulder-to-shoulder with bearded guerrillas clad in the olive green of Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Your mission: topple 1950’s Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Out to foil you are Batista soldiers and police who pop out from behind trees and fire from trucks and farmhouses. You pick them off with a vintage Colt .45 or Springfield rifle. If you’re hit three times, it’s revolution over. . . . Read Complete Report
The Cuban Revolution CIA Archives Documentary History (1960)
Uploaded on Nov 9, 2011
The Cuban Revolution was a successful armed revolt by Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, which overthrew the US-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista on 1 January 1959, after over five years of struggle. “Our revolution is endangering all American possessions in Latin America. We are telling these countries to make their own revolution.” — Che Guevara, October 1962 . . . complete description on youtube