Daniel Llorente, an independent Cuban dissident who has repeatedly protested the communist regime by waving a U.S. flag in public, told the Cuban-American news outlet Radio Martí this weekend that police forcibly expelled him to Guyana in the dead of night, threatening to “disappear” him if he ever returned.

No, it doesn't appear to be mere hyperbole, considering it's the well-known neocon uber-hawk senator from South Carolina, who like the late John McCain would never waist precious opportunity to put the USA firmly on the war path.

Addressing recent reports that Cuba and Russia have sent troops to Venezuela to prop up embattled President Nicolas Maduro, Sen. Lindsey Graham angrily tweeted Friday, "Where is our aircraft carrier?"

Full implementation of US embargo law on Cuba is illegal under international law, the EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said as she promised retaliatory measures amidst yet another row between Brussels and Washington.

The “full activation” of US embargo legislation against Cuba is “contrary to international law” and goes against the previous US-EU agreements, Mogherini said on Thursday, promising to apply “all appropriate measures” to defend European interests.

National Security Adviser John Bolton continued to push accusations that Cuba is behind the failed US-backed coup in Venezuela, now claiming that 25,000 Cuban troops are in the country, and Venezuela would fall by midnight if they left.

Cuba has denied having troops in Venezuela, or engaging in any military operations there. Bolton provided no evidence that the 25,000 troops are there, and there are some serious reasons to doubt it.

President Donald Trump is threatening a “full and complete embargo” and sanctions on Cuba if its troops do not “immediately” cease operations in Venezuela.

Trump’s Twitter missive to the longtime U.S. foe comes amid his swift embrace of a Venezuelan opposition effort to spark a military uprising against embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

Cuba is among Maduro’s staunchest backers amid a U.S.-led effort to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the nation’s legitimate president.

As it becomes clear that the Trump Administration support, so far unsuccessful, for regime change in Venezuela is also very much about targeting the huge financial presence of China with the Maduro regime, recent news of a major Chinese oil success in Cuban waters will clearly deepen the geopolitical tensions. And it involves not only Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil.

China’s major state-owned oil company, CNPC, through its subsidiary, Great Wall Drilling, has begun exploring for oil off Cuba’s coast in a joint venture with state-owned oil firm Cuba Petroleum Company (CUPET), according to an April 16 report in the China state news agency, Xinhua. Great Wall has been engaged in oil exploration in Cuba since 2005, but this is the most promising result to date. Advanced drilling technology from CNPC has opened the prospect of major oil off Cuba for the first time.

President Donald Trump and his administration have decided to cancel a December deal that would have allowed MLB teams to sign Cuban players, according to the Washington Post.

The White House argued that the Cuban Baseball Federation was part of the Cuban government, which caused the deal to be nullified because trade with Cuba is currently banned.

The initial deal, which was expected to run through October 2021, allowed Cuban players to sign with clubs under similar rules as other international players from Japan and South Korea.

Players who were over 25 years old would be free to sign with organizations that paid a "release fee" to the Cuban club. Other players could sign minor league deals.

The Cuban Armed Forces expressed their support for the Government of Nicolás Maduro, after the United States threaten a military intervention to Venezuela.

In ceremonies, held this Saturday in different barracks, chiefs, officers, non-commissioned officers, sergeants, soldiers and civilian workers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) of Cuba, dressed in military green, have ratified their support to the Venezuelan Executive with their signature on the campaign “Hands out of Venezuela!”

According to the state news agency Agencia Cubana de Noticias , which includes images in this regard, the Cuban military has launched its traditional slogans of “Hasta la Victoria, siempre!” Or “Patria o muerte, conquer!”.

“The US action is interventionist, to attack and invade a country. Only they (Venezuela) are responsible for resolving their internal problems, “said FAR Lieutenant Colonel Ignacio Ariosa, at an event in the city of Matanzas, 83 kilometers east of Havana, the capital.

After debunking Washington’s lies about the burning of “humanitarian aid” trucks on the Venezuelan/Colombian border (more than two weeks after being scooped by independent journalists), the New York Times quickly reverted to form in an article by Nicholas Casey headlined “‘It is Unspeakable’: How Maduro Used Cuban Doctors to Coerce Voters” (3/17/19).

As the title not-so-subtly suggests, Casey claimed to present bombshell revelations regarding the Nicolás Maduro government’s alleged weaponization of Cuban medical personnel as a means of holding on to power. On closer inspection, however, the article is riddled with factual inaccuracies, omissions and misrepresentations.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford issued a statement Monday denying weekend media reports that the US plans to leave around 1,000 troops in Syria, saying the reports are “factually incorrect.”

Dunford presented the current planned “residual force” as 200, saying that this hadn’t changed since February. The US announced 200 would stay on February 21, but on February 22 officially increased that number to 400.

It’s not clear from Dunford’s statement where the “incorrect” aspect of the new report, which came out of a Wall Street Journal, exists. That report suggested that the 1,000 figure was not yet finalized, but was being discussed. Dunford’s comments didn’t include any details on what is actually being discussed, but just that nothing was finalized.

Shipping companies and insurers that take part in sending crude oil from Venezuela to Cuba have been “put on notice,” U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said in a tweet, following a declaration by the Venezuelan opposition-dominated National Assembly that all oil exports to Cuba must be suspended in the wake of the five-day blackout that wreaked havoc on the already struggling South American country.

“The Venezuelan National Assembly has decreed the suspension of crude exports to Cuba following the collapse of the national electrical grid. Insurance companies and flag carriers that facilitate these give-away shipments to Cuba are now on notice,” Bolton tweeted.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Cuba and Russia on Monday of propping up President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela in the Trump administration’s most explicit argument yet that his government is a dictatorial regime kept alive by two American adversaries.

Mr. Pompeo’s comments came amid a devastating power outage that has plunged many of Venezuela’s most populous areas into darkness, spoiling food in a nation where little is available.

He denied Mr. Maduro’s accusation that foreign powers — a clear reference to the United States — had any role in creating the blackout that has brought the country to the brink of social implosion. Instead, Mr. Pompeo said, the blame lies squarely with Havana and Moscow.

“When there is no electricity, thank the marvels of modern Cuban-led engineering,” Mr. Pompeo said in comments laced with sarcasm. “When there’s no water, thank the excellent hydrologists from Cuba. When there’s no food, thank the Cuban communist overlords.”

If this sort of extreme censorship continues, pretty soon anybody that has anything even remotely important or interesting to say will be completely banned by Facebook. As you will see below, Facebook has just banned Zero Hedge, and they have also just announced that they will be systematically censoring any content that has “misinformation” about vaccines. Of course this is just the latest chapter in a relentless campaign by the social media giants to censor alternative sources of information. Since Donald Trump’s victory in November 2016, the social media crackdown has just gotten worse and worse, and it has gotten to the point where we can now safely say that free speech is dead on the major social media platforms.

Retired U.S. Army General Robert Scales told FOX Business’ Trish Regan Opens a New Window. that the United States military is indeed operating in the region of Venezuela Opens a New Window. . He says U.S. forces have been active for some time in Colombia attempting to thwart the drug trade.

“Let's be very clear. The military is involved. We have had a Special Forces group in Colombia for almost 60 years fighting against the terrorist groups in Colombia” Major Gen. Scales said on “Trish Primetime Opens a New Window. ” Monday. “But they are purely on the periphery. They are helping facilitate the delivery of aid. They are training the Colombian army. They are keeping watch electronically over the border with Venezuela.”

The State Department on Monday announced it would allow lawsuits to be brought against Cuba companies and individuals by people whose property was seized by the communist government during and after Fidel Castro's revolution in the late 1950s.

In the United States' latest move to punish Cuba and encourage democracy in the communist nation, the State Department announced it would suspend for 30 days part of the 1996 Libertad Act, also known as the Helms-Burton Act, and allow some lawsuits to be brought against companies using properties confiscated by the Cuban government after its 1959 revolution.

"Even under a new president in Cuba, nothing has changed," a senior State Department official said Monday. "The U.S. is holding the Cuban regime responsible."

In a landmark - if widely expected - decision, the Department of Justice in Ottawa has ruled that extradition proceedings against Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested on the same day that President Trump and President Xi struck their trade truce in Buenos Aires, will proceed.

Though whether or not she will face trial in the US must still be determined by a Canadian court, a process that could take months or even years, the fact that her extradition is moving forward is still a big moment in a case that has captivated investors and elicited threats of retribution against Ottawa from Beijing.

Meng is wanted in the US on charges of fraud and sanctions violations for her alleged role in deceiving HSBC and other banks into processing transactions for Huawei that were purportedly linked to Iran. US prosecutors filed roughly a dozen charges against Meng and Huawei in January, as well as a formal request for her extradition, according to the BBC.

he Trump administration is threatening to unleash a flood of lawsuits involving Cuba, which no U.S. president has ever done. It has set a deadline of March 2 to announce whether it will create, in the words of the National Lawyers Guild, “a second embargo” of Cuba — “one that would be very difficult to dismantle in the future.”

Trump may give current U.S. citizens standing to sue in U.S. courts even if they were Cuban citizens when the Cuban government nationalized their property after the 1959 Revolution. They would be able to bring lawsuits against U.S. and foreign companies that allegedly profit from the nationalized properties.

In accordance with international law, the Cuban government had offered compensation to U.S. nationals for the taking of their property, as I explain below. If Trump permits myriad new lawsuits to proceed, it would unleash a tsunami of litigation that would harm U.S. companies and punish the Cuban people even more.

The Trump administration is threatening to unleash a flood of lawsuits involving Cuba, which no U.S. president has ever done. It has set a deadline of March 2 to announce whether it will create, in the words of the National Lawyers Guild, “a second embargo” of Cuba — “one that would be very difficult to dismantle in the future.”

Trump may give current U.S. citizens standing to sue in U.S. courts even if they were Cuban citizens when the Cuban government nationalized their property after the 1959 Revolution. They would be able to bring lawsuits against U.S. and foreign companies that allegedly profit from the nationalized properties.

At a Havana press conference Tuesday, the Cuban government accused the Trump administration of preparing a military operation against Venezuela, suggesting that humanitarian aid is a pretext for intervention.

"You're starting to see American military transports that originate in U.S. military installations, where marine infantry and special forces operate and plan covert action," Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said in Havana.

Rodriguez told journalists that the US military is quickly building up assets unbeknownst to Caribbean governments where their bases are located.

Journalists questioned what evidence Cuba has the US is preparing to stage a military operation to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told Local 10's Cuba correspondent Hatzel Vela to examine the airports where he would uncover evidence of the buildup.

The United States will help the people of Nicaragua and Cuba to resist “non-democratic regimes” in their countries, Mike Pompeo has said. His comments come as Washington steps up calls for a new government in Venezuela.

The secretary of state responded in the affirmative when asked during an interview with Telemundo if the US would “help” people living in “non-democratic regimes” in South America.

“Yes, President Trump’s administration has done so and will continue to do so. Not just in Venezuela but certainly in Nicaragua and Cuba,” Pompeo said, adding that the Washington is “working diligently to achieve good outcomes for those people.”

President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is militarily ready for a Cuban Missile-style crisis if the United States wanted one, and that his country currently has the edge when it comes to a first nuclear strike.

The Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in 1962 when Moscow responded to a U.S. missile deployment in Turkey by sending ballistic missiles to Cuba, sparking a standoff that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Cuba said on Thursday the United States was moving special forces closer to Venezuela as part of a covert plan to intervene in the chaotic South American country using the pretext of a humanitarian crisis.

On this day in 1898, the USS Maine blew up in Havana harbor.

No one reading this is old enough to remember the “Remember the Maine” campaign.

It started with a spectacular explosion in Havana harbor and the sinking of the USS Maine.

It was blamed on “bad guys” who the US conveniently already had detailed plans of attacking.

The real story only came out 90 years later and it probably wasn’t in your school history book.

The parallels with 9/11 are chilling.

Just got this video from a friend in #PinardelRio who says they think the trail in the sky was left by a #meteorite, which shattered windows and made extremely loud sounds. Sounded like two #explosions. #cuba @WPLGLocal10

That section of the 1996 anti-Cuban Helms-Burton Act known as Title III allows Cuban exiles or their families and a few U.S. companies to seek remedies in U.S. courts for properties they lost in Cuba due to nationalization by the revolutionary government. Ever since, the U.S. government at six month intervals has announced that Title III would not be taking effect during the following six months. But on January 16 U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo indicated that suspended implementation that begins on February 1 will last only 45 days and not the usual six months.

He explained that during that time a “careful review” would take place in order “to expedite a transition to democracy in Cuba.” He cited “the Cuban regime’s brutal oppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms and its indefensible support for increasingly authoritarian and corrupt regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua,”

Don’t count on the news media to tell you about this one.

Even before he Bay of Pigs the CIA waged a not-so-covert war against Cuba.

George Bush Sr. was known by the FBI to run with violent Cuban exiles as documented in a memo written by none other than J. Edgar Hoover.

For decades, CIA-supported Cubans committed acts of terror in Cuba and around the globe attempting to destabilize the Castro government and put the island back under US government and organized crime control.

When a number of US diplomats and their families in Cuba reported hearing bizarre noises in 2016 and 2017-- and experienced a range of symptoms such as dizziness, vertigo, and pain and ringing in the ears — US Department of State officials feared they might have fallen victim to an "acoustic attack" by sonic devices.

In October 2017, the Associated Press obtained and released the first publicly reported audio sample said to be related to the incidents. But US officials have been unable to definitively identify the source or cause of the symptoms, and Cuban officials have denied any attack.

But now, after analyzing the recording, scientists say the source of the piercing noise said to be a "sonic attack" — described by the diplomats' as "buzzing," "grinding metal" and "piercing squeals" — could be an echoing call of a cricket. Specifically, the Indies short-tailed cricket, Anurogryllus celerinictus.

A senior Cuban official says the country is looking closely at the Special Purpose Vehicle the EU is creating for Iran, because Havana may benefit from a similar mechanism.

Cuba is watching closely the development of the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which the EU is crafting to circumvent US sanctions on Iran, senior Cuban foreign ministry official Rodolfo Reyes said in an interview with AFP. According to Reyes, Cuba thinks a similar mechanism might be created in the future for Havana to avoid the US embargo on the island.

"There was a mention of this instrument, and we of course also raised the interest that we would have in any solution of this kind that would allow European companies to become increasingly involved in foreign investment and bilateral trade with Cuba," Reyes told AFP.

Concern has been raised among the West that the plans are Russian retaliation after the US announced it was pulling out of the bilateral Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

According to The Jamestown Foundation – a Washington DC-based institute for research and analysis, founded in 1984 as a platform to support Soviet defectors – the re-opening of the base would "duplicate rather than significantly add to Russian abilities to monitor US activities in the Caribbean".

ast week, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn the US embargo against Cuba. A total of 189 member-nations said Cuba did not deserve this embargo, which began in 1961 and has continued unabated to this day. Only two countries – the United States and Israel – voted against the motion. No country abstained.

Cuba’s minister for foreign affairs, Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla, has said the US embargo has cost the small socialist island state upwards of US$933.678 billion, with the losses in the past year amounting to $4.3 billion (twice the amount of foreign direct investment into the island). This embargo, Rodriguez Parrilla said as he put the resolution forward, is an “act of genocide” against Cuba and its people.

Russia may provide a 38 mln euro credit to Cuba in the military technical cooperation line, Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said on Friday.

"There are unapproved parts that remain to be agreed, the Cubans plan to come here with a professional delegation in the near future and I think the agreement will be signed during that visit. The Cuban delegation that will be involved in expansion of military technical cooperation intends to arrive in two weeks," he said, adding that the credit is worth 38 mln euro.

Russia is considering plans to restore military bases in Vietnam and Cuba that had served as pivots of Soviet global military power during the Cold War, Russian news agencies quoted Russian Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Pankov as saying on Friday.

“We are dealing with this issue,” the agencies quoted Pankov as saying in Russia’s parliament.

One can only marvel at the blatant, outrageous hypocrisy of the United States. This is on clear display in many areas: proclaiming support for self-determination while financing the oppression of the Palestinians; citing international law when it suits its needs, but violating international law, such as in the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and stating that ‘all men are created equal’, as U.S. police officers gun down unarmed people of African descent. Multiple examples abound.

The government’s officials do nothing to hide this hypocrisy; rather, they seem to seek opportunities to flaunt it.

The most recent opportunity came when the U.S. called a special meeting of the United Nations to spotlight, it said, Cuba’s political prisoners. According to the U.S., Cuba has imprisoned 130 political prisoners. The U.S. called this a “blatant affront” to basic democratic freedoms.

A senior Russian official proposed that his country is seriously considering establishing a military base in Cuba in response to Trump’s plan to quit the INF treaty, predicting that "a new Cuban crisis" could erupt if the US and Russia fail to come to terms.

According to General Vladimir Shamanov, the head of the Russian lower house of parliament's defense committee and a former airborne troops commander, with the US planning on walking away from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) treaty, Russia's response should be in the "spirit of those times", by reactivating Russian military facilities in Cuba.

The U.S. and Russia have accused one another of violating the agreement, but President Donald Trump has announced his intention to now end it, paving the way for new nuclear and conventional weapons systems at a time of heightened tensions, Newsweek reported.

The only promise that is new about the promised peace plan is the way it will be forced on the Palestinians: no one has promised that the plan itself will be new. With Saudi Arabia and Egypt—the outside—brought onside with the promise of continued military aid despite their crimes against humanity and violations of international law and the Palestinians weakened by being silenced, economically crushed and stripped of any friends to help them, the United States and Israel are now free to attempt to impose a peace plan on the Palestinians.

It’s well known at this point that just under 30 percent of Americans ages 17 to 24 ? the prime age to join the Army ? aren’t eligible to join.

But beyond that, almost a third of those who sit down with a recruiter to take the first steps are immediately disqualified.

Why? Because of their weight.

“Out of all the reasons that we have future soldiers disqualify, the largest – 31 percent ? is obesity,” Maj. Gen. Frank Muth, head of Army Recruiting Command, said Wednesday at AUSA’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

A freshly published study, “Unhealthy and Unprepared” concludes that America’s rising numbers of overweight youth are going to have real impacts on the military’s ability to maintain effectiveness.

“We’ve got to make sure that message gets out, because our concern is what happens when that percentage that qualify … potentially goes down?” Muth said. “Or if the obesity, if that starts to go up.”

There’s no conclusive evidence that US diplomats stationed in Cuba were injured by a futuristic weapon, Kenneth R. Foster, a professor of bioengineering, told RT, adding that theories involving microwaves were “science fiction.”

NBC published an explosive report earlier this week claiming that several anonymous US officials suspect that Russia was behind a series of unexplained “attacks” on US diplomatic personnel in Cuba and China, leaving the victims with injuries ranging from hearing loss to “problems with cognition.”

But Foster, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studied microwave phenomena while working at the Naval Medical Research Center in Bethesda, told RT that the evidence that these purported injuries were caused by some kind of microwave weapon – which the NBC article alleges – is “science fiction.”

The advisory also warns military activities linked to the bloody conflict in Syria have been ramped across Iran's airspace.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington are running high following Donald Trump’s controversial decision to pull out of the landmark Iran nuclear deal re-introduce economic sanctions last month.

Flight Service Bureau, which provides safety information on airspace to airlines, said "without seeming alarmist", the deteriorating relationship between the US and Iran must be taken into account when planning flights in Iran's airspace.

Nearly two years since State Department employees (and some CIA spies) began suffering from a mysterious acute illness that left some victims with permanent brain damage and hearing loss, the US State Department is inching closing to a conclusion that anyone paying attention could have easily anticipated...

That's right...

Putin

...it looks like this guy is at it again.

To wit, NBC News reported Tuesday morning that the State Department believes Russia is the prime suspect in a series of mysterious attacks using concentrated sound waves or microwaves (the US still isn't certain of the exact nature of the attacks) that seriously injured 26 "diplomats" (many of whom were CIA spies) working at the US embassy in Havana.

The U.S. blockade on Cuba, imposed for more than 60 years, cost the tiny Caribbean island US$4.2 billion between April 2017 and March 2018, bringing Cuba’s total losses over six decades to US$134.5 billion.

In an annual report detailing the impact of Washington’s ongoing financial and trade policy, Cuba’s Foreign Ministry branded the blockade “the most unfair, severe and prolonged system of unilateral sanctions that has been applied against any country.”

The report, published Friday, noted that bilateral relations between the two nations – which had begun to thaw under the Barack Obama administration – experienced “a serious setback” in June 2017, when new U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memo strengthening the blockade.

Over the past two years there have been increasing reports of supposed “sonic injuries” among US diplomats. First in Cuba and more recently in China. Controversial implications are that the US officials may have been maliciously targeted by a “sonic weapon” in host countries. However, a more likely explanation is that the alleged victims are the result of US attempts to create “super spies”.

Some 250 US diplomats in China are reportedly undergoing neurological medical tests to ascertain if they have succumbed to the same kind of brain trauma diagnosed in other colleagues. A study of 21 diplomats evacuated from Cuba found last year that they had incurred brain injuries, but, it was diagnosed, not from physical impact to their heads.

Some factors so far missing from the subject need to be addressed.

First, it seems strange that the mysterious brain injuries are only reported by US diplomats. No other country has reported similar incidents among their diplomatic staff.

Cuba will officially recognize private property under a new constitution that also creates the position of prime minister alongside the president, state media reported on Saturday.

IT IS A testament to the Washington establishment’s rhetorical dexterity that it labeled Guantánamo Bay home of the world’s most dangerous terrorists. U.S. leaders meant, of course, to refer to the hundreds of non-Americans detained at the base over the past 16 years. But a closer look at the history of Guantánamo tells a different story — one in which the United States, beginning 120 years ago this June, used the enclave in southeastern Cuba to launch decades upon decades of terroristic overseas conquest.

I can’t think of another story I’ve reported on which was so completely, 100% devoid of facts….

The allegations of Cuban “sonic attacks” are a complete and total joke. If you believe one iota of this scandalous insult to human honesty and decency – you are dangerously gullible.

Why are only White workers in the US and Canadian embassies reporting health problems, when Cubans act as embassy guards, janitors, etc.? Are injurious sound waves racist?

I talked to Cubans guarding the abandoned Canadian embassy: they said their health is totally fine. The US embassy is in a densely-populated area – hundreds of locals should have been impacted, but nobody has reported any problems.

Scientists of all nationalities have declared: the idea that imperceptible sonic waves can cause brain damage is against the laws of acoustic physics. Scientists are entirely too charitable when they attribute as “mass hysteria” the self-reported and unproven “physical affects”.

Cuba turns to a model Communist Party official, Miguel Diaz-Canel, to steer it through a period of uncertainty when it finally turns the page on the Castro era in a vote on Thursday.

The 57-year-old First Vice President is the pre-ordained choice of Raul Castro as he steps down, ensuring that the vote in the National Assembly to appoint him will be little more than a formality.

Tensions between Russia and the US could be ramped up further if Vladimir Putin agrees to reopen the old Soviet-era military base in Cuba.

The base in question, near Havana, was opened in 1962, in response to American ballistic missile deployment in Italy and Turkey.

It sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis, considered to be the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war.

The base was closed in 2002, but now, two of President Putin's key parliamentary allies are urging him to reopen the unit, just a few hundred miles from the Florida coastline.

Their calls come after the American placing of US missile defence systems close to Russia's borders.

The relations with the Republic of Cuba have long been one of the most painful problems of the United States. Even after the withdrawal of its main ally – the USSR – from the global stage, all the US attempts to get Cuba under its influence have failed. Lately, Cuba has acquired a new strong ally – China.

Scientists believe the root of a ‘sonic attack’ that led to the US State Department recalling 21 employees and reducing staff from its embassy in Cuba could’ve just been ‘bad engineering.’

In September 2017, the State Department pulled 21 diplomats and their families out of Cuba and stopped issuing travel visas to the country after embassy workers reported hearing loss, dizziness, speech issues, cognitive problems and other medical symptoms that appeared to stem from a ‘sonic attack’ in their homes or hotel rooms.

Some Canadian embassy workers also reported feeling ill from a high-pitched noise.

Doctors, FBI investigators and US intelligence agencies all tried to identify the source of the ‘sonic attack,’ with some people postulating that a sonic weapon or even a poisoning was being deployed against the embassy workers.

Of the many stories written about Hurricane Katrina in autumn 2005, and its devastating consequences, one crucial element is virtually overlooked. During the all-important hours after the tropical cyclone laid waste to sections of south-eastern United States, the Bush administration ignored the aid of its Cuban neighbor.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro offered to ship over 1,600 doctors and dozens of tons of medical supplies to the US’s affected areas. Considering the decades-long terrorist attacks perpetrated against Cuba by US governments, in addition to a crippling embargo, it was a noble gesture by the Castro government.

A gesture largely erased from the record too – it wouldn’t do for the powers-that-be to raise Cuba’s profile while questioning the leader of the free world. Castro’s remarkable offer was not altogether surprising if one looks at the record.

Despite Customs and Border Protection admitting to ongoing privacy concerns over data retention (currently planned for a 2-week maximum), an article in The Business of Federal Technology highlights that a rapid expansion of biometric airport security is imminent.

Until now, biometric ID has been used or tested at 5 international airports. Although there was a clear assumption of a wider roll-out, it was unclear what the timetable was for implementation and how pervasive the program would become. Apparently, if all goes well for CBP, it will be in ALL U.S. airports within just 4 years, according to statements given to senators by Commissioner Kevin McAleenan:

McAleenan, who is facing confirmation to hold the top CBP job on a permanent basis, told members of the Senate Finance Committee that the agency planned to expand current trials at five international airports to all major airports in the U.S. in four years.

Pyongyang hopes to rekindle a Cold War-era friendship.

Korean Central News Agency announced Friday that North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and his delegation will be traveling to Cuba, in hopes of revamping international support amid sanctions and widespread condemnation of Pyongyang’s nuclear missile tests.

The Washington Post reported that North Korea’s visit to Cuba occurs as Pyongyang’s largest trading partners announced they would halt trade with the isolated nation. Singapore—North Korea’s seventh largest trading partner–indicated it would sever its trade with the country Thursday, while the Philippines—Pyongyang’s fifth largest trading partner—is following suit.

Now Cuba – in spite of a non-stop economic war waged on it by the US – has one of the highest literacy rate in the world and sends it doctors to help in disasters around the world, over 700 to help after the recent hurricanes in 2017.

The Cuban system is not perfect, but in the areas of social welfare and dealing with civilian emergencies, it makes the US look truly pathetic.

As Miami New Times reports, a set of documents related to Operation Mongoose — which was the Central Intelligence Agency’s plot to remove Castro from power — show that the U.S. at one point considered staging terrorist attacks against Cuban refugees that were either headed to or were already residing within the country.

A paper approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962 outlined a plan to create a pretext for invading Cuba and overthrowing the Castro regime that involved killing refugees and then pinning the blame on Castro’s government.

“We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area,” the report read. “The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven within the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated).”

Based on new archival materials becoming available every now and then, a slice of Cold War era history that is still dissected and understood from new perspectives is the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The narrative that was dominant initially was that the Soviets surreptitiously tried to deploy inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM) to Cuba targeting the US and the attempt was nipped in the bud with the Kennedy administration staring down the then Kremlin boss Nikita Khrushchev through a display of naval blockade of the island.

California can now start jailing people that refuse to use the preferred gender pronouns of nursing home residents after Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill Thursday.

The law’s effect is limited to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, but mandates that those who “willfully and repeatedly” refuse “to use a transgender resident’s preferred name or pronouns” can be slapped with a $1,000 fine and up to one year in prison, according to the California Heath and Safety code.

Known as the “LGBT Senior Bill Of Rights,” the legislation also requires nursing homes and care facilities to allow residents to use the bathroom of their choice, regardless of biological sex. The bill’s author, state Sen. Scott Weiner, argues that religious views don’t hold weight in public areas.

Cuba's top diplomat insisted Tuesday that his government had nothing to do with unexplained health "attacks" on U.S. diplomats, telling Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that Cuba still has no evidence to explain what transpired in Havana. Tillerson emphasized that it's Cuba's responsibility to protect diplomats on its soil, regardless of who is to blame.

Countering the aggressive attacks of the United States President Donald Trump against sovereign nations in his address at the United Nations General Assembly this week, many other leaders from around the world have used the forum to denounced the U.S. imposed blockade against Cuba.

“On Thursday it emerged that the “attack” – which Cuba denies – was in one case a blaring, grinding noise which jolted an American diplomat from his bed in The Capri, a Havana hotel popular with tourists.

The diplomat, according to AP, moved just a few feet, and there was silence. He climbed back into bed – and then the agonising sound hit him again.

"None of this has a reasonable explanation," said Fulton Armstrong, a former CIA official who served in Havana long before America re-opened an embassy there.