In a historic meeting Friday, Pope Francis met with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill at the Havana airport, and the two signed a joint declaration of common belief and purpose, including a vigorous defense of religious liberty, marriage between a man and a woman, and an unborn’s inviolable right to life.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal broke the amazing story of a Hellfire missile—more precisely, a technically accurate training missile with an inert warhead—that somehow ended up in Cuba, ostensibly due to human error.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) went to Cuba this week to promote his state’s economic interests and the Obama administration’s new policy of engagement with the regime. He failed to meet, or seek, any of Cuba’s political dissidents or human rights activists.
The Colombian government’s attempt to legitimize the FARC terrorist organization has resulted in the emboldening of the world’s wealthiest non-jihadist terror group, details the Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady.
A new poll shows that, despite public support for a peace deal with the FARC terrorist group, a significant portion of the population of Colombia remains uncomfortable with the idea of FARC terrorists abandoning the guerrilla lifestyle and settling into civilian life.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the world’s richest Marxist terrorist group, is threatening to walk away from a breakthrough peace deal signed with the Colombian government in September if the latter opts to “reinterpret” any part of the deal.
24 members of the Cuban Ladies in White dissident group have finally been freed after their arrest to prevent them from attending Pope Francis’s mass in Havana on Sunday. The women claim to have been beaten, “dragged by the hair,” and subject to verbal obscenities.
Among the many foreign policy disasters for which President Barack Obama has been responsible, none is uglier than the recent Cuba deal. We are less safe because of Iran, Russia, and ISIS, But the Cuba deal has made us less free.
Today the Obama administration raised the American flag above the U.S. embassy in Cuba. It is unclear what, if anything, the U.S. has won in exchange for normalizing relations with the Castro regime–one of the world’s most oppressive tyrannies. It is clearer what we have lost.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) attacked the Obama administration’s “accommodation and appeasement” of the Cuba’s Castro regime, calling Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Havana to reopen the American embassy “a birthday present for Fidel Castro.”
HAVANA (AP) — The Stars and Stripes rose Friday over the newly opened U.S. Embassy for the first time in 54 years, making a symbolically charged victory lap for the Obama administration’s new policy of engagement with Cuba.
“No hay nada que temer” (“there is nothing to fear”), Secretary of State John Kerry told Cuban communist government officials and their Obama administration guests at the new United States embassy in Havana Friday, applauding dictator Raúl Castro and President Obama for the reestablishment of diplomatic relations that culminated in today’s ceremony.
An article in Cuban media claiming to be written by retired Cuban despot Fidel Castro is demanding an unspecified number of “millions” of dollars from the United States as recompense for alleged economic damage created by America’s sanctions on the repressive communist state, on the eve of the scheduled celebration of the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Havana.
The State Department has raised the Cuban flag over the new embassy in Washington, D.C. while the American embassy remains barren in Havana, though operating officially as an embassy. It released its first press release today as an official embassy and not the Office of American Interests. It will be run by interim head Jeffrey DeLaurentis as Congress gears up to oppose the appointment of any ambassador to the communist dictatorship so long as the Castro regime continues to flagrantly violate human rights.
The Obama administration has yet to question American Alan Gross about his lengthy imprisonment in Cuba–six months after he returned home in a prisoner swap that set the stage for full normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations this week, the Daily Beast reports. Though Gross spent more than five years in a Cuban prison, and could potentially provide valuable intelligence on the regime, as well as information about political prisoners, the Obama administration showed no interest.
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama announced renewed diplomatic ties with the communist regime of Cuba, with the reopening of Cuban embassies in Washington and Havana for the first time in more than 50 years. U.S. Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), Chairman of the House Foreign
President Obama has announced the reopening of the American Embassy in Havana this morning, following rumors that the United States had agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations with the communist dictatorship this month as part of the White House’s “normalization” program to reintegrate the Cuban regime into polite international society.
A Catholic church in the central Cuban city of Cienfuegos has banned female relatives of political prisoners from attending mass unless they no longer wear white, a color associated with political imprisonment in the nation. The slight to families of the abused follows the bewildering remark from Archbishop of Havana Jaime Ortega that Cuba no longer has prisoners of conscience.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong arrived in Havana this week, just in time for the resumption of talks between Cuba and the United States. In public statements praising the Cuban government, Ri praised Cuba’s continued “fight against American imperialism” and vowed that North Korea would remain a loyal ally to Cuba.
In a weekend during which House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi declared from Havana that Congressional Democrats had a “great enthusiasm” for lifting what is left of the American embargo in Cuba, the Cuban government reportedly arrested more than 200 dissidents across the island for attempting to attend Catholic mass.
On Monday’s broadcast of “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” Sen-elect Tom Cotton (R-AR) explained to fill-in host Lanhee Chen why President Barack Obama’s direction in foreign policy regarding Iran was wrong. According to Cotton, Obama’s priorities regarding Cuba, Iran and Israel
