Maryland Woman Pleads For Husbands Release From Jail In Cuba

Jessica Gresko, Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The wife of a Maryland man jailed in Cuba as an alleged spy has written to Cuban President Raul Castro to apologize and plead for his release.

Judy Gross' husband Alan Gross was arrested at the Havana airport in December 2009. At the time, he was working as a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government office that provides economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide.

"I recognize today that the Cuban government may not like the type of work that Alan was doing in Cuba ... But I want you to know that Alan loves the people of Cuba, and he only wanted to help them. He never intended them, or your government, any harm," Judy Gross wrote in a letter dated Aug. 4 and first reported Sunday by Reuters. "To the extent his work may have offended you or your government, he and I are genuinely remorseful."

Gross, who was able to visit her husband for the first time this summer, wrote that when she returned home she learned that the couple's 26-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

"We need him, and I need him, more now than ever before," she wrote, adding that Gross' release would be viewed "as a wonderful humanitarian gesture on the part of the Cuban people."

She also told Castro that she worried about the health of her husband. He is 61, has lost more than 80 pounds since he was arrested and has developed a problem that may result in permanent paralysis in his right leg, she wrote.

Judy Gross has denied that her husband was a spy. She has said that her husband is a veteran development worker who was helping members of Cuba's Jewish community use the Internet to stay in contact with each other and with similar groups abroad. Communications equipment he brought with him was intended for humanitarian purposes, not for use by Cuba's dissident community, she said.

Gross has not been charged, but senior Cuban leaders have accused him of spying. U.S. diplomats, meanwhile, have insisted Gross was doing nothing wrong. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for Gross' release in June, saying that his continued detention was harming U.S.-Cuba relations.

www.yahoo.com

Castro Tells American Journalist Cuba's 'Communistic Economic Model' Doesn't Work

HAVANA Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba's communist economic model doesn't work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear of local issues since stepping down four years ago.

The fact that things are not working efficiently on this cash-strapped Caribbean island is hardly news. Fidel's brother Raul, the country's president, has said the same thing repeatedly.

But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba's 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for the Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Mr. Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," Mr. Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.

He said Mr. Castro made the comment casually over lunch after a long talk about the Middle East, and did not elaborate. The Cuban government had no immediate comment on Mr. Goldberg's account.

Since stepping down from power in 2006, the ex-president has focused almost entirely on international affairs and said very little about Cuba and its politics, perhaps to limit the perception he is stepping on his brother's toes.

Mr. Goldberg, who traveled to Cuba at Mr. Castro's invitation last week to discuss a recent Atlantic article he wrote about Iran's nuclear program, also reported on Tuesday that Mr. Castro questioned his own actions during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, including his recommendation to Soviet leaders that they use nuclear weapons against the United States.

Even after the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba has clung to its communist system.

The state controls well over 90 percent of the economy, paying workers salaries of about $20 a month in return for free health care and education, and nearly free transportation and housing. At least a portion of every citizen's food needs are sold to them through ration books at heavily subsidized prices.

President Raul Castro and others have instituted a series of limited economic reforms, and have warned Cubans that they need to start working harder and expecting less from the government.

But the president also has made it clear he has no desire to depart from Cuba's socialist system or embrace capitalism.

Fidel Castro stepped down temporarily in July 2006 due to a serious illness that nearly killed him.

He resigned permanently two years later, but remains head of the Communist Party. After staying almost entirely out of the spotlight for four years, he re-emerged in July and now speaks frequently about international affairs. He has been warning for weeks of the threat of a nuclear war over Iran.

Mr. Castro's interview with Mr. Goldberg is the only one he has given to an American journalist since he left office.

www.washingtontimes.com

Dem Rep & Communist: "Opponents Want to Destroy President Who Looks Like Me... Fidel Castro Was One of Brightest Leaders I Have Ever Met"

LA Representative and Communist Diane Watson (D-CA) racebaits and praises Fidel Castro and the Cuban health care system at an Obamacare debate.

The people of California must be very proud to have such an esteemed Marxist representing them in Congress.
KABC reported:

Breitbart
"They are spreading fear and they're trying to see that the first president who looks like me -- fails."

What an absolute disgrace.

VIA

Well, Well Finally Fidel Speaks

Fidel Castro says racist right-wingers fight Obama
Tue Aug 25, 2009 2:06am EDT

HAVANA (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is trying to make positive changes in the United States, but is being fought at every turn by right-wingers who hate him because he is black, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Tuesday.

In an unusually conciliatory column in the state-run media, Castro said Obama had inherited many problems from his predecessor, George W. Bush, and was trying to resolve them. But the "powerful extreme right won't be happy with anything that diminishes their prerogatives in the slightest way."

Obama does not want to change the U.S. political and economic system, but "in spite of that, the extreme right hates him for being African-American and fights what the president does to improve the deteriorated image of that country," Castro wrote.

"I don't have the slightest doubt that the racist right will do everything possible to wear him down, blocking his program to get him out of the game one way or another, at the least political cost," he said.

Castro, who writes regular commentaries for Cuba's state-run media, has criticized Obama, complimented him occasionally and said that he is watching him closely to see if he means what he says about changing U.S. policy toward Cuba.

His latest column comes during a visit to Cuba by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson that has stirred speculation that he may try to push U.S.-Cuba relations forward.

Richardson has been a diplomatic trouble-shooter in nations with which the United States has poor relations. In 1996 he negotiated with Castro for the release of three Cuban political prisoners.

Obama has said he wants to end 50 years of hostilities between the United States and Cuba and has eased the long-standing U.S. trade embargo against the communist-led island.

But he has said the embargo will be lifted only if Cuba shows progress on political prisoners and human rights. Cuban President Raul Castro has said he is happy to discuss these issues but will make no unilateral concessions.

Obama has been criticized by anti-embargo groups for moving too slowly on Cuban policy.

Castro, 83, ran Cuba for 49 years after taking power in a 1959 revolution, but stepped down last year so Raul Castro, his younger brother, could succeed him.

He has not been seen in public since undergoing intestinal surgery in July 2006, but still plays a behind-the-scenes role in government and maintains a high profile through his writings.

He appeared on Cuban television on Sunday for the first time in 14 months meeting with Venezuelan students.

He seemed in good health as he smiled and talked with the students in an appearance some experts believe was aimed at shoring up support for his brother and the government at a time when Cuba is in deep economic crisis.

(Reporting by Jeff Franks; editing by Chris Wilson)

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