American Ballet Theatre comes to Cuba

Pirouttes, not politics, as American Ballet Theatre makes long-awaited visit to Cuba
Havana — American Ballet Theatre dancers promised pirouettes — not politics — during the troupe's historic visit to Cuba this week, the first by the New York-based company since shortly after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution turned the island into a U.S. nemesis. America's premier ballet company was in Havana to pay homage to Cuba's most famous ballerina, 89-year-old Alicia Alonso, who danced with the American Ballet Theatre in the 1940s and 50s before returning to her homel...

Pirouttes, not politics, as American Ballet Theatre makes long-awaited visit to Cuba
Havana — American Ballet Theatre dancers promised pirouettes — not politics — during the troupe's historic visit to Cuba this week, the first by the New York-based company since shortly after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution turned the island into a U.S. nemesis. America's premier ballet company was in Havana to pay homage to Cuba's most famous ballerina, 89-year-old Alicia Alonso, who danced with the American Ballet Theatre in the 1940s and 50s before returning to her homel...

American Ballet Theatre to perform in Cuba
By Jeff Franks Havana | Tue Nov 2, 2010 5:05pm EDT Havana (Reuters) - The American Ballet Theater, making its first appearance in Cuba in 50 years, will pay tribute this week to ballet legend Alicia Alonso in the latest attempt at cultural Diplomacy to bridge the political divide between the United States and the Communist-led island. Alonso, who turns 90 on December 21, danced with the New York-based troupe in the 1940s and 1950s and performed some of its most famous works. American Ballet T...

Wife of Cuban spy visits husband in U.S. prison - Americas - MiamiHerald.com
The wife of convicted Cuban spy Gerardo Hernández was allowed to visit him in his U.S. Prison last month for the first time in 12 years, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's office confirmed Friday. Ros-Lehtinen spokesman Alex Cruz said the Republican Congress member ``raised hell'' when State Department officials briefed her on the visit, after it had taken place. ``We again raised the fact that they are treating Alan Gross and this convicted spy as equals,'' said Cruz, referring to the U.S. gov...

American Ballet Theatre in historic visit to Cuba
American Ballet Theatre dancers promised pirouettes – not politics – during the troupe's historic visit to Cuba this week, the first by the New York-based company since shortly after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution turned the island into a U.S. nemesis....

Cuba to send 3 more prisoners to exile in Spain
HAVANA -- Roman Catholic officials on Monday announced the names of three more Cuban Prisoners who have accepted exile in Spain in return for freedom. One of the men, Adrian Alvarez Arenciba, has been in jail since 1985 for Espionage and other violations of state security. Another, Ramon Fidel Basulto Garcia, was convicted of hijacking in 1994. Both were serving 30-year sentences. The third man, Joel Torres Gonzalez, does not appear on the most widely used list of Cuban Dissidents or Political ...

Cuba to release 3 more prisoners into exile in Spain, none from '03 crackdown on dissent
Havana — Roman Catholic officials on Monday announced the names of three more Cuban Prisoners who have accepted exile in Spain in return for freedom. One of the men, Adrian Alvarez Arenciba, has been in jail since 1985 for Espionage and other violations of state security. Another, Ramon Fidel Basulto Garcia, was convicted of hijacking in 1994. Both were serving 30-year sentences. The third man, Joel Torres Gonzalez, does not appear on the most widely used list of Cuban Dissidents or pol...

Fidel and Taxes
Cuba’s government announced last week a new set of Tax rules that would apply to self-employed workers and small-business owners. The taxes are hefty in size—twenty-five per cent for incomes more than five thousand pesos ($225) per year and fifty per cent for incomes more than fifty thousand pesos ($2,300)—and revolutionary on an island that hasn’t taxed any of its citizens in more than four decades. Most Cubans are employed by the state in one way or another, and nothing...

Cuba unveils new business taxes
The Cuban authorities have set out in detail new rules and taxes for the self-employed and small businesses as they move to overhaul The Economy. Taxes will range from 25% for incomes more than 5,000 pesos (about $225, £142) a year to 50% for those earning more than 50,000 pesos (about $2,300). Many self-employed business people will be allowed to hire workers. The changes come as the government prepares to cut half a million State jobs by March next year. Tax is a relatively new concep...

Obama: People Saw "Overreach" in My Actions - Political Hotsheet - CBS News
"I won the Election in 2008, one of the reasons, I think, that people were excited about the campaign was the prospect that we would change how business is done in Washington," he said. "And we were in such a hurry to get things done that we didn't change how things got done. And I think that frustrated people." He also placed the blame for the outcome of the Midterms on that "very tough decisions" made by his administration during his first two years in office on the stimulus package, the bank ...

Review: `Learning to Die in Miami' deftly continues story of Carlos Eire's childhood in exile
"Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy" (Free Press, $26), by Carlos Eire: He's still waiting for snow, only now he's doing so literally in Bloomington, Ill., not figuratively in Havana. It's 1963, Carlos Eire is 13 and when the snowflakes finally fall in his new corner of the world, he writes, they "snuck up on me, just like the Cuban Revolution. Except this is the best of all surprises, not the worst." With vibrant details that practically dance off the page, Eire again offe...

Review: `Learning to Die in Miami' deftly continues story of Carlos Eire's childhood in exile
"Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy" (Free Press, $26), by Carlos Eire: He's still waiting for snow, only now he's doing so literally in Bloomington, Ill., not figuratively in Havana. It's 1963, Carlos Eire is 13 and when the snowflakes finally fall in his new corner of the world, he writes, they "snuck up on me, just like the Cuban Revolution. Except this is the best of all surprises, not the worst." With vibrant details that practically dance off the page, Eire again offe...

Review: `Learning to Die in Miami' deftly continues story of Carlos Eire's childhood in exile
"Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy" (Free Press, $26), by Carlos Eire: He's still waiting for snow, only now he's doing so literally in Bloomington, Ill., not figuratively in Havana. It's 1963, Carlos Eire is 13 and when the snowflakes finally fall in his new corner of the world, he writes, they "snuck up on me, just like the Cuban Revolution. Except this is the best of all surprises, not the worst." With vibrant details that practically dance off the page, Eire again offe...

Cuba to release 3 more prisoners into exile in Spain, none from '03 crackdown on dissent
Havana — Roman Catholic officials on Monday announced the names of three more Cuban Prisoners who have accepted exile in Spain in return for freedom. One of the men, Adrian Alvarez Arenciba, has been in jail since 1985 for Espionage and other violations of state security. Another, Ramon Fidel Basulto Garcia, was convicted of hijacking in 1994. Both were serving 30-year sentences. The third man, Joel Torres Gonzalez, does not appear on the most widely used list of Cuban Dissidents or pol...

USS MAINE
The second bid for independence by Cuban revolutionaries began in April 1895. The Spanish government reacted by sending General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau with orders to pacify the island. The "Butcher," as he became known in the U.S., determined to deprive the rebels of support by forcibly reconcentrating the civilian population in the troublesome districts to areas near Military headquarters. This policy resulted in the Starvation and death of over 100,000 Cubans. Outrage in many sec...

Cuba to send 3 more prisoners to exile in Spain
HAVANA -- Roman Catholic officials on Monday announced the names of three more Cuban Prisoners who have accepted exile in Spain in return for freedom. One of the men, Adrian Alvarez Arenciba, has been in jail since 1985 for Espionage and other violations of state security. Another, Ramon Fidel Basulto Garcia, was convicted of hijacking in 1994. Both were serving 30-year sentences. The third man, Joel Torres Gonzalez, does not appear on the most widely used list of Cuban Dissidents or Political ...

Cuba to release longest-held political prisoner
Havana | Mon Nov 1, 2010 4:59pm EDT Havana (Reuters) - Cuba will free its longest-held Political Prisoner, jailed since 1985, and send him to Spain as the government continues to ship opponents out of the country. The Catholic Church said on Monday that Cuba had agreed to release three more Prisoners, including Adrian Alvarez, 44, who has been serving a 30-year sentence for stealing rifles while in the Cuban Military. He was allegedly taking the weapons with plans to launch a Military action ...

'Learning to Die in Miami': From Operation Peter Pan to Yale
'Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy' by Carlos Eire Free Press, 304 pp., $26 "Having just died, I shouldn't be starting my afterlife with a chicken sandwich, no matter what, especially one served up by nuns." Thus begins Carlos Eire's irreverent, deeply affecting "Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy," his personal narrative of a heartbreaking footnote in U.S. history. In 1962, at the age of 11, Eire and his 13-year-old brother, Tony, were part of the Pedr...

The Canadian Press: Cuba faces Nov. 7 deadline for freeing remaining 13 dissidents who balk at going into exile
Havana — Angel Moya has told relatives he will never stop fighting for Political change in Cuba, and hopes to be a thorn in the government's side if he is released from jail. Hector Maseda's wife says he will leave Prison only if his freedom is unconditional. After releasing many of Cuba's best-known Prisoners of conscience, the Communist government has a week left to make good on a promise to clear Cuban jails of 52 Activists, opposition leaders and social critics. Those that remain, h...

Ted Sorenson, Kennedy Adviser And Speechwriter, Dead At 82
Theodore C. Sorensen, who was a close adviser and counselor to John F. Kennedy for 11 years, writing words and giving voice to ideas that shaped the president’s image and legacy, died Sunday in New York. He was 82 and lived in Manhattan. He died after complications from a stroke he suffered a week ago, according to his wife, Gillian Sorensen. A previous stroke, in 2001, had taken away much of his eyesight. Mr. Sorensen said he suspected the headline on his obituary would read: “Theod...

Do they have a choice?
These Journalists live in the universe that suits them and their agenda. This puts me in mind of the (in)famous televised Barbara Walters interview of Fidel Castro in Cuba many years ago, when she was still posing as hard-news Journalist. At one point, she asked a supposed "average citizen" what he thought of Castro's revolution. Apart from the fact he would never have been allowed near her to be questioned on camera for broadcast unless it was certain he'd say what the regime wanted, there was ...

4 U.S. Nationals Killed in Mexico Border City
Like this Story? Share it: U.S. struggles to keep Mexican Drug Cartel violence from spilling across Border. Learn about the people, economy and history. (AP) Four U.S. citizens were shot to death in separate attacks in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexican authorities said Monday. Chihuahua State prosecutors' spokesman Arturo Sandoval said Edgar Lopez, 35, of El Paso, Texas, was killed Sunday along with two Mexican men when gunmen opened fire on a group standing outside a house. On Saturda...

Dominicans Nab US Singer with Cocaine in Stomach
Like this Story? Share it: Learn about the people, economy and history. Fla. Man Denies Cocaine Found in Buttocks is His (AP) An American singer suspected of trying to smuggle Cocaine in his stomach was detained as he tried to board a U.S.-bound flight at a Dominican Airport, authorities said Tuesday. Ramon Alcides Rodriguez, spokesman of the country's drug control agency, said that New York-born bachata singer Jimmy Bauer became sick at Santo Domingo's International Airport on Monday when a co...

French Baby Survives 8-Floor Fall
Like this Story? Share it: (AP) French Police say an 18-month-old boy has survived a fall from an eighth-floor window of a Paris apartment by bouncing off an awning and into someone's arms, apparently uninjured. Police say they have detained the parents of the baby boy for questioning. According to police, the parents had gone for a stroll on Monday, a French holiday, and left the 18-month-old with his three-year-old sister in the family apartment in eastern Paris. Police said Tuesday the lit...

The attack on Reina Luisa Tamayo is finally reported by the media
While the news media was busy writing articles about the latest "reforms" being implemented by Raul Castro, Reina Luisa Tamayo and dozens of other Dissidents were getting brutally attacked in Banes. While Journalists in Havana were making appointments with the regime's mouthpieces to get the latest economic figures from a regime that makes up economic figures, Reina Luisa Tamayo and dozens of other Dissidents were being stoned and rounded up like animals. It took two days, but at least one repor...