"US contractor ends fifth year in Cuban prison:" by Michael Weissenstein, Associated Press December 04, 2014
HAVANA — Five years to the day after his arrest in Cuba on espionage charges, former US contractor Alan Gross is threatening a hunger strike, refusing almost all visitors, and predicting he will die in prison if he isn’t freed by his 66th birthday in May, relatives and backers said Wednesday.
It’s impossible to measure the gravity of the threat, but it’s clear Gross is essential to any detente between Cuba and the United States. His declarations have added to a sense that the next five months could be a closing window for the Obama administration and Cuba to move to normalize their relationship.
In his first term, Obama loosened restrictions on Cuban-American travel and money remittances to Cuba, and he has advocated further changes in his second. Now, with host Panama having invited President Raul Castro to become the first Cuban leader to attend the Summit of the Americas, an annual meeting of Western Hemisphere nations, many see the time leading up to the April 10-11 meeting as a time for any US action on Cuba.
The United States keeps Cuba under economic embargo and lists it as a state sponsor of terrorism. US prisons also still hold three of five Cuban intelligence agents given long prison sentences after being convicted for operations on American soil — a topic of constant, outraged commentary in state-controlled Cuban media.
Most Americans have no idea who those people are thanks to the propaganda pre$$ of AmeriKa.
Related: Who are the Cuban Five?
Also see: The Cuban Five were fighting terrorism. Why did we put them in jail?
Because they were exposing "our" terrorists.
On Wednesday, the White House called on Cuba to release Gross, with press secretary Josh Earnest saying in a statement that the United States remains ‘‘deeply concerned’’ about the American’s health.
Earnest said Gross’s release ‘‘would remove an impediment to more constructive relations’’ between the two countries.
Cuban officials have linked the fate of the agents to Gross, who was detained in December 2009 while setting up illegal Internet access as a subcontractor for the US Agency for International Development.
Oh, he was part of Obama's covert overthrow army!
‘‘There seems to be a growing sense in this country that resolving both situations would be constructive,’’ said Richard Klugh, a lawyer for two of the jailed Cuban agents, Antonio Guerrero and Gerardo Hernandez. ‘‘That is an atmospheric change that gives one hope that the political will is there to follow through.’’
As he recently did on immigration, Obama could move without congressional approval to relax US rules that require most Americans wanting to visit Cuba to go on expensive, organized trips with US-approved agendas. Such a change could generate hundreds of millions of dollars a year for Cuba’s centrally planned economy, which is struggling for cash in the absence of major expansions in foreign investment or private economic activity. Cuban authorities this week downgraded their prediction of 2014 growth to 1.3 percent, nearly a point lower than expected at the beginning of the year.
Observers in both countries warn, however, that expectations of imminent progress have come and gone before without real change to relations that have been tense for more than five decades.
‘‘We won’t make enough progress obviously until he’s home,’’ State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said of Gross on Tuesday. ‘‘His continued incarceration represents a significant impediment to a more constructive bilateral relationship.’’
Gross’s wife, Judy, said in a written statement that the contractor has lost more than 100 pounds, can barely walk due to chronic pain, and has lost five teeth and much of the sight in his right eye.
Related:
"This island of 11 million people is one of the largest global contributors of medical workers to the fight against Ebola, a commitment that has drawn rare praise from the United States and focused worldwide attention on Cuba’s unique program of medical diplomacy."
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NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Fidel Castro awarded China’s Confucius Peace Prize" Associated Press December 12, 2014
BEIJING — Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro was named this year’s recipient of China’s Confucius Peace Prize, portrayed by organizers as an alternative to the Nobel Prize, which they see as biased against China.
It's called a newspaper here in AmeriKa.
The committee that sponsors the prize praised 88-year-old Castro for ‘‘contributions to peace’’ — in stark contrast to the view in the West of Castro as a dictator who ran an oppressive one-party state for nearly five decades while seeking to export communist revolution.
‘‘As Cuba’s leader, when managing international relations, especially relations with the US, he did not use military force or violence to resolve controversies and disputes,’’ prize cofounder Liu Zhiqin was quoted as saying by the official newspaper Global Times.
Castro also made ‘‘important contributions on eliminating nuclear war after retirement,’’ Liu said.
In line with past recipients, the ailing Castro did not come to Beijing to pick up his award and it wasn’t clear whether he was aware of the honor. The prize, in the form of a gold-colored statuette and certificate, was instead handed to a Cuban foreign student representative at a ceremony Tuesday at a Beijing hotel.
That came one day ahead of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who had been shot in the head by the Taliban two years ago for speaking out on education, and Kailash Satyarthi of India, who has campaigned for children’s rights.
Related: Ireland, Illinois, India, and Italy
The Confucius Prize sponsors are academics and private businesspeople who say they are independent of China’s government.
Named for ancient China’s most famous sage, the prize was launched in 2010 after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to imprisoned Chinese dissident writer Liu Xiaobo.
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