Cuba Cutting Venezuela Loose

That's the tone of the article.

"Raúl Castro visits Chávez in Venezuela on first foreign trip" by Saul Hudson, Reuters | December 14, 2008

CARACAS - President Raúl Castro of Cuba launched his first international trip in Venezuela yesterday, visiting with his country's longtime ally and benefactor, President Hugo Chávez, before he heads to a regional summit in Brazil....

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By exchanging inexpensive oil for doctors working in Venezuelan slums, Chávez has helped Cuba recover from the shock of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had propped up the island's economy in the face of a US embargo. But with Venezuela's oil income plunging and signs that Chávez's support may be eroding after a decade in power, Cuba is trying to diversify its foreign support.

Push, push, push that agenda, MSM!

Since taking office in February, Raúl Castro has bolstered ties with Russia and China and is now seeking to take advantage of Brazil's stated goal of boosting Cuban trade, especially in its nascent oil industry. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil has expressed an interest in stronger ties with Cuba and the United States.

It's one or the other, guy!

Venezuela sells Cuba about 90,000 barrels of crude oil per day at subsidized rates. The two countries also are pursuing other oil industry cooperation. A Cuban delegation spent Friday hashing out plans for a joint refinery and the development of offshore fields that Havana hopes can boost its economy, which this year was damaged by hurricanes....

See, that's where the U.S. policy is idiotic! So other nations are going to benefit from Cuba's oil when they are 90 miles away!

In Washington last week, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez called on the world to "remember the plight of the Cuban people, who live under a totalitarian dictatorship that has denied them human rights for almost half a century."

That from a nation that TORTURES!!!!!!

I guess HEALTH CARE and LITERACY aren't human rights, huh?

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