Posts tagged "Cuba"

Pentagon wants $450M for Guantanamo prison

The Pentagon is asking Congress for more than $450 million for maintaining and upgrading the Guantanamo Bay prison that President Barack Obama wants to close.

New details on the administration’s budget request emerged on Tuesday and underscored the contradiction of the president waging a political fight to shutter the facility while the military calculates the financial requirements to keep the installation operating.

The budget request for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 calls for $79 million for detention operations, the same as the current year, and $20.5 million for the office of military commissions, an increase over the current amount of $12.6 million. The request also includes $40 million for a fiber optic cable and $99 million for operation and maintenance.

The Pentagon also wants $200 million for military construction to upgrade temporary facilities. That work could take eight to 10 years as the military has to transport workers to the island, rely on limited housing and fly in building material.

The facility at the U.S. naval base in Cuba currently holds 166 prisoners, and hunger strikes by 100 of them over their indefinite detention and prison conditions prompted Obama to renew his effort to close Guantanamo. The president is expected to discuss the future of the facility in a speech on counterterrorism on Thursday.

“Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe,” the president said at a White House news conference last month. “It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.”

Since his inauguration in January 2009, Obama has pushed for shutting the prison, signing an executive order for closure during his first week in office. He has faced resistance in Congress with Republicans and some Democrats repeatedly blocking efforts to transfer terror suspects to the United States.

The law that Congress passed and Obama signed in March to keep the government running includes a longstanding provision that prohibits any money for the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States or its territories. It also bars spending to overhaul any U.S. facility in the U.S. to house detainees.

That makes it essentially illegal for the government to transfer the men it wants to continue holding, including five who were charged before a military tribunal with orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks.

Lawmakers have cited statistics on terror suspects striking again and argued that Obama has failed to produce a viable alternative to Guantanamo.

Some members of Congress counter that U.S. maximum security prisons currently hold convicted terrorists and can handle such suspects. Among those in U.S. prisons is Zacarias Moussaoui, who planned the Sept. 11 attacks.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he favors closing Guantanamo for several reasons, including the expense. Money in a time of deficits could be a factor for other lawmakers, including fiscal conservatives in Congress.

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Obama on Tuesday offering his help to get the facility closed.

Until it is, Smith wrote, “it will continue to symbolize an unjust attempt to avoid the rule of law and to undermine the United States’ moral standing in defending its values and protecting human rights.”

Smith said al-Qaida continues to use Guantanamo to rally violent extremists to its cause.

Pentagon requests $450 million to maintain and upgrade Guantanamo Bay

The Pentagon wants more than $450 million for maintaining and upgrading the Guantanamo Bay prison that President Barack Obama wants to close.

New details on the administration’s budget request for next year and other expenses emerged on Tuesday. The cost of the facility that houses 166 prisoners indefinitely includes $200 million for military construction work that could stretch over a decade.

The request also includes $40 million for a fiber optic cable and millions more for military commissions at the facility in Cuba.

Since he took office in January 2009, Obama has pushed to close the prison but has faced opposition from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress. Obama is expected to renew his plea in a speech on counterterrorism on Thursday.

Many Americans jailed abroad

Frida Ghitis says Dennis Rodman has brought attention to the case of Kenneth Bae, held by N. Korea, but there are a number of other Americans being held captive in nations from Cuba to Iran

FBI in NJ to announce Cuba fugitive case details

The decades-old international case of a convicted cop killer is getting new attention in New Jersey.

The FBI is scheduled to make an announcement Thursday regarding Joanne Chesimard. She’s has been on the run since escaping from a New Jersey prison in 1979.

Chesimard was serving a life term for killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973 when she fled to Cuba. She has lived there under the name Assata Shakur.

The U.S. Justice Department has offered a $1 million reward for her capture.

Chilly relations between the countries have made Cuba a haven for fugitives, but the climate is changing. Just last month, a Florida couple who sailed to Cuba was returned to the U.S. and accused of kidnapping their two young children from the boys’ grandparents.

In Cuba, much work remains 6 months after Sandy

Many people in eastern Cuba are said to still be living with relatives or in homes covered by flimsy makeshift rooftops six months after Hurricane Sandy pummeled the island’s eastern provinces.

In general people have praise for government efforts to rebuild Santiago and other cities. One resident says Santiago is once again “blossoming.”

But they caution that much work remains to recover from the storm.

An aid worker says some people are in damaged homes covered by only plastic sheets. That’s of particular concern as the summer rainy season approaches.

Thursday marked six months since Sandy made landfall in Cuba, where 11 people died from the storm.

Sandy then raged up the U.S. Atlantic Seaboard and killed 72 more.

Sheriff: Fla. couple, kidnapped sons now in Cuba

A Florida couple suspected of kidnapping their two sons from the woman’s parents are in Cuba, authorities said Monday.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office received information that the Hakken family had arrived on the island nation, according to a news release. Investigators say they’re working with the FBI and the U.S. State Department to verify their reports.

It wasn’t immediately clear what, if anything, authorities could do to retrieve the family from Cuba. An email seeking comment from the State Department wasn’t immediately returned.

The sheriff’s office alleges that Joshua Michael Hakken entered his mother-in-law’s house north of Tampa early Wednesday, tied her up and fled with his sons, 4-year-old Cole and 2-year-old Chase.

Federal, state and local authorities had been searching by air and sea for a boat Hakken recently bought. The truck that Hakken, his wife Sharyn and the boys had been traveling in was found late Thursday, abandoned in a parking garage in Madeira Beach. Authorities say they had been looking up and down the entire Gulf coast from Pensacola to the Keys and the Intracoastal Waterway. An Amber Alert for the boys has been issued in Florida, Louisiana and other states.

The boys had been living since last year with their maternal grandparents, who were granted permanent custody Tuesday. Joshua Hakken lost custody of his sons last year after a drug possession arrest in Louisiana, and he later tried to take them from a foster home at gunpoint, authorities have said. Authorities have previously characterized the Hakkens as “anti-government.”

The Hillsborough Sheriff’s office has issued an arrest warrant for Joshua Hakken on charges of kidnapping and several other counts.

Bay of Pigs veterans remember release from Cuba

Veterans from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion are celebrating 50 years since their release from Cuba.

The first planeload of prisoners arrived at Homestead Air Force Base on Dec. 23, 1962. Some survivors from those flights planned a reunion Saturday at the Bay of Pigs Museum in Miami’s Little Havana.

More than a 1,100 Bay of Pigs fighters were held for 20 months following the disastrous April 1961 invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government. They were eventually released under an agreement in which Cuba would receive more than $50 million worth of food and medical supplies.

Veteran Jose Andreu tells The Miami Herald (http://hrld.us/Vck7Jz ) that he remembers “a lot of hugging and crying” when his sister, father and fiancée welcomed him back to Miami.

Fla man pleads guilty to smuggling birds from Cuba

A Miami man faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly trying to smuggle birds from Cuba into the United States in his pants.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says Alberto Diaz Gonzalez pleaded guilty Thursday to attempting to import undeclared wildlife from the Caribbean island. He is scheduled to be sentenced in February.

Diaz’s federal public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.

Diaz returned to Miami from Havana on Oct. 20. Court documents show he told U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials in Miami that he was not carrying any wildlife.

But authorities say when officers searched Diaz, they found 16 Cuban bullfinches hidden in his pants. They say Diaz admitted the birds were from Cuba and that he planned to sell them.

Sandy gone, Caribbean mourns 58 dead, cleans up

The Caribbean death toll from Hurricane Sandy rose again sharply on Saturday, even as the storm swirled away toward the U.S. East Coast. Officials said the hurricane system has cost at least 58 lives in addition to destroying or badly damaging thousands of homes.

While Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas took direct hits from the storm, the majority of deaths and most extensive damage was in impoverished Haiti, where it has rained almost non-stop since Tuesday.

The official death toll in Haiti stood at 44 Saturday, but authorities said that could still rise. The country’s ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides are especially vulnerable to flooding when rains come.

“This is a disaster of major proportions,” Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told The Associated Press. “The whole south is under water.”

He said the death toll jumped on Saturday because it was the first day that authorities were able to go out and assess the damage, which he estimated was in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the bulk of it in lost crops.

Nineteen people are reported injured and another 12 are missing, according to Haiti’s Civil Protection Office.

One of the remaining threats was a still-rising muddy river in the northern part of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

“If the river busts its banks, it’s going to create a lot of problems. It might kill a lot of people,” said 51-year-old Seroine Pierre. “If death comes, we’ll accept it. We’re suffering, we’re hungry, and we’re just going to die hungry.”

Officials reported flooding across Haiti, where 370,000 people are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake. Nearly 17,800 people had to move to 131 temporary shelters, the Civil Protection Office said.

Among those hoping for a dry place to stay was 35-year-old Iliodor Derisma in Port-au-Prince, who said the storm had caused a lot of anguish.

“It’s wet all my clothes, and all the children aren’t living well,” he said. “We’re hungry. We haven’t received any food. If we had a shelter, that would be nice.”

Santos Alexis, mayor of the southern city of Leogane, said Saturday that two people were reported dead there, including a man in his late 30s and a boy around 10 years old who drowned. He said the city was hit by heavy rains but that no major damage was reported.

“Water came into the houses, water got on the beds, but they didn’t lose their homes,” he said. “Leogane was underwater mostly, but now we have less water.”

President Michel Martelly and Lamothe handed out water bottles to dozens of people in a Port-au-Prince neighborhood on Friday. They also distributed money to local officials to help clean up the damage.

Sandy left dozens of families homeless when it barreled across Jamaica Wednesday as a Category 1 hurricane. One man was crushed to death by a boulder that tumbled into his house. Military officials on Saturday were carrying supplies and doctors to five communities in the southern mountainous region that had been cut off by floods.

The storm hit eastern Cuba as a Category 2 hurricane early Thursday. Eleven people died in Santiago and Guantanamo provinces and official news media said the storm caused 5,000 houses to at least partially collapse while 30,000 others lost roofs. Banana, coffee, bean and sugar crops were damaged.

The storm then churned into the Bahamas archipelago, toppling light posts, flooding roads and ripping down tree branches. Police said the British CEO of an investment bank died when he fell from his roof in upscale Lyford Cay late Thursday while trying to repair a window shutter. Officials at Deltec Bank & Trust identified him as Timothy Fraser-Smith, who became CEO in 2000.

In Puerto Rico, police said a man in his 50s died Friday in the southern town of Juana Diaz, swept away in a river swollen by rain from Sandy’s outer bands. Flooding forced at least 100 families in southwestern Puerto Rico to seek shelter.

Authorities in the Dominican Republic evacuated more than 18,100 people after the storm destroyed several bridges and isolated at least 130 communities. Heavy rains and wind also damaged an estimated 3,500 homes.

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Associated Press writers Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Pierre-Richard Luxama in Grand Goave, Haiti; Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana; and Ezequiel Abiu Lopez in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, contributed to this report.

Sandy gone, Caribbean mourns 43 dead, cleans up

Hurricane Sandy is swirling off toward the U.S. East Coast, leaving the Caribbean to mourn the storm-related deaths of at least 43 people and clean up wrecked homes, felled power lines and fallen tree branches.

While Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas took direct hits from the storm, the majority of deaths and most extensive damage was in impoverished Haiti, where it has rained almost non-stop since Tuesday.

The death toll in Haiti stood at 29 late Friday, but officials worried that the number could rise as searches continued in the country’s ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides that are especially vulnerable to flooding when rains come.

Officials were concerned about a continuing rise in a river in the northern part of the capital, Port-au-Prince. People living nearby in mud-splattered, makeshift settlements kept a wary eye on the rush of muddy water.

“If the river busts its banks, it’s going to create a lot of problems. It might kill a lot of people,” said 51-year-old Seroine Pierre. “If death comes, we’ll accept it. We’re suffering, we’re hungry, and we’re just going to die hungry.”

Officials reported flooding across Haiti, where 370,000 people are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake. Nearly 17,800 people had to move to 131 temporary shelters, the Civil Protection Office said.

Among those hoping for a dry place to stay was 35-year-old Iliodor Derisma in Port-au-Prince, who said the storm had caused a lot of anguish.

“It’s wet all my clothes, and all the children aren’t living well,” he said. “We’re hungry. We haven’t received any food. If we had a shelter, that would be nice.”

Officials at a morgue in the western town of Grand Goave said a mudslide crashed through a wooden home Thursday, killing 40-year-old Jacqueline Tatille and her four children, ranging in ages from 5 to 17.

“If the rain continues, for sure we’ll have more people die,” morgue deputy Joseph Franck Laporte said. “The earth cannot hold the rain.”

On Friday, President Michel Martelly and Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe handed out water bottles to dozens of people in a Port-au-Prince neighborhood. They also distributed money to local officials to help clean up the damage.

Sandy left dozens of families homeless across Jamaica when it barreled across the island Wednesday as a Category 1 hurricane. One man was crushed to death by a boulder that tumbled into his house.

The storm then gained strength and hit eastern Cuba as a Category 2 hurricane early Thursday. Eleven people died in Santiago and Guantanamo provinces as wind and rain tore into thousands of homes. Authorities said it was Cuba’s deadliest storm since July 2005, when Category 5 Hurricane Dennis killed 16 people and caused $2.4 billion in damage.

Official news media said the storm caused 5,000 houses to at least partially collapse while 30,000 others lost roofs. Banana, coffee, bean and sugar crops were damaged.

The storm then churned into the Bahamas archipelago, toppling light posts, flooding roads and ripping down tree branches. Police said the British CEO of an investment bank died when he fell from his roof in upscale Lyford Cay late Thursday while trying to repair a window shutter. Officials at Deltec Bank & Trust identified him as Timothy Fraser-Smith, who became CEO in 2000.

Government officials in the Bahamas said the storm appeared to inflict the greatest damage on Cat Island, which took a direct hit, and Exuma.

“I hope that’s it for the year,” said Veronica Marshall, a 73-year-old hotel owner in Great Exuma. “I thought we would be going into the night, but around 3 o’clock it all died down. I was very happy about that.”

On Long Island, farmers lost most of their crops and several roofs were torn off, legislator Loretta Butler-Turner said. The island was without power and many residents did not have access to fresh water, she said.

Power also was out on Acklins Island and most roads there were flooded, while the lone school on Ragged Island in the southern Bahamas was flooded.

In Puerto Rico, police said a man in his 50s died Friday in the southern town of Juana Diaz, swept away in a river swollen by rain from Sandy’s outer bands. Flooding forced at least 100 families in southwestern Puerto Rico to seek shelter.

Authorities in the Dominican Republic evacuated more than 18,100 people after the storm destroyed several bridges and isolated at least 130 communities. Heavy rains and wind also damaged an estimated 3,500 homes.

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Associated Press writers Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Trenton Daniel in Port-au-Prince and Pierre-Richard Luxama in Grand Goave, Haiti; Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana; and Ezequiel Abiu Lopez in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, contributed to this report.