“Latin America's contact with Islam dates back to the 12th century. Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus. Muslim sailors arrived in America in 1178. Christopher Columbus mentions the existence of a mosque on a hill along the Cuban coast. I will talk to my brothers in Cuba and a mosque would suit the top of that hill today as well. We would build it if they [the Cuban government] say so. Islam had expanded in the American continent before Columbus arrived,” Erdoğan said on Saturday while speaking in İstanbul at the 1st Latin American Muslim Religious Leaders Summit, hosted by Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate. » | Today’s Zaman | Saturday, November 15, 2014
Showing posts with label Cuba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cuba. Show all posts
Monday, November 17, 2014
Erdoğan Says Muslims Discovered America, Wants Mosque in Cuba
“Latin America's contact with Islam dates back to the 12th century. Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus. Muslim sailors arrived in America in 1178. Christopher Columbus mentions the existence of a mosque on a hill along the Cuban coast. I will talk to my brothers in Cuba and a mosque would suit the top of that hill today as well. We would build it if they [the Cuban government] say so. Islam had expanded in the American continent before Columbus arrived,” Erdoğan said on Saturday while speaking in İstanbul at the 1st Latin American Muslim Religious Leaders Summit, hosted by Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate. » | Today’s Zaman | Saturday, November 15, 2014
Monday, December 23, 2013
Castro Calls on US to Establish Civilized Relations
Cuba is ready for a warming of ties with the United States, but will never give in to demands to change Cuba’s socialist government and economy, President Raul Castro has said.
Speaking weeks after exchanging an impromptu handshake with US President Barack Obama at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela, Mr Castro again signaled that he was ready to talk, but would not capitulate to America.
“If we really want to move our bilateral relations forward, we’ll have to learn to respect differences,” he said in the speech to Cuba’s parliament over the weekend. “If not, we’re ready to take another 55 years in the same situation.”
However he added that Cuba would not ever become like the US, saying “we don’t demand that the US change its political or social system and we don’t accept negotiations over ours.” » | Peter Foster, Washington | Sunday, December 22, 2013
Monday, September 30, 2013
Cuba Permits Athletes to Play Abroad
Friday, July 12, 2013
Cuba-bound Jet Detour Sparks Speculation Snowden On Board
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Monday, June 24, 2013
THE MOSCOW TIMES: Edward Snowden is expected to fly from Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport to Cuba today at 2:05 p.m., Interfax reported, citing one of its sources.
Snowden, a 30-year-old former U.S. intelligence contractor, is wanted by the U.S. for revealing a highly classified surveillance program, but it appears that calls for Russia to extradite him back to his country of birth have fallen on deaf ears.
Earlier today National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said that the White House expects Russia to consider "all options available" to extradite Edward Snowden.
"Given our intensified cooperation after the Boston marathon bombings and our history of working with Russia on law enforcement matters — including returning numerous high-level criminals back to Russia at the request of the Russian government — we expect the Russian government to look at all options available to expel Mr. Snowden back to the U.S. to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged," the Associated Press quoted Hayden as saying. » | RIA Novosti | Material from The Moscow Times is included in this report | Monday, June 24, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
There is speculation that he might now fly on to another country.
Hong Kong said Washington had failed to meet the requirements for extradition.
Mr Snowden, an intelligence contractor, fled to Hong Kong in May after revealing details of internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence.
The Aeroflot flight, SU213, landed in Moscow at 17:10 local time (13:10 GMT).
The Russia 24 TV channel has said Mr Snowden does not have a Russian visa, so will stay in the airport overnight before, the channel says, flying to Cuba on Monday.
A source at the airline company was quoted as saying that, from Cuba, he would fly on to Venezuela. Both countries are believed unlikely to comply with any US extradition request.
Whistleblowing website Wikileaks has issued a statement saying that it has helped to find him "political asylum in a democratic country". » | Sunday, June 23, 2013
Monday, February 04, 2013
Monday, January 14, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Venezuela is not the only Latin American nation that is monitoring every moment of president Hugo Chavez's illness. His ally Cuba has relied on him for economic help, and that could soon come to an end.
Away from the constitutional wrangles and impassioned crowds of Caracas, the future of Venezuela after Hugo Chavez is being plotted this weekend in an elegant pre-revolutionary mansion in Havana's old playboy quarter.
The firebrand Venezuelan president is fighting for his life in a nearby hospital, stricken by severe respiratory problems and a lung infection after his latest round of surgery for cancer.
His illness left him unable to be sworn in for his fourth term as president last Thursday, having won a close-fought election in October.
But for his Cuban hosts, much more is at risk than simply the loss of a fellow left-wing Latin American radical who has long venerated Fidel Castro. His death would also put at risk the remarkable oil-fuelled largesse that has allowed Cuba to cling to its experiment in tropical communism.
Thanks to the close personal relationship between Mr Chavez and Mr Castro, energy-rich Venezuela supplies more than 100,000 barrels of dirt-cheap oil a day to Cuba - an estimated 50 per cent of the island's petroleum needs.
Venezuela also hires tens of thousands of Cuban doctors and teachers to work in its barrio slums, propping up the Cuban economy to the tune of some $6 billion a year in total. Without that subsidy, Havana would have long ago been forced to introduce market reforms to its communist regime. » | Philip Sherwell, and Andrew Hamilton in Havana | Saturday, January 12, 2013
Saturday, November 03, 2012
In a foreign ministry statement, Cuba said the US was "promoting... financing and supplying" opponents of the government using "diverse media".
It blamed staff at the US Interests Section at the Swiss embassy in Havana.
The US has said it simply allows Cubans access to computers and free courses on how to use the internet.
Access to the internet in Cuba is severely restricted, but some activists have used it to challenge the government.
Havana said that diplomats from the US Interests Section were "permanently inciting these people... to undertake provocative actions... and act against the Cuban constitutional order".
The statement was published in the official newspaper, Granma. » | Saturday, November 03, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
LE FIGARO: Des blogueurs installés à Miami assurent que Fidel Castro est mort ou, à tout le moins, serait dans un état critique. Le régime rétorque qu'il n'en est rien. Au-delà de la rumeur, El Comandante n'a jamais été aussi longtemps absent de la scène publique.
«Fidel Castro est mort», assurent plusieurs blogueurs de Miami. «El Comandante va bien», réplique l'un de ses fils, le photographe Alex Castro Soto del Valle. «Il mène ses activités quotidiennes, lit et fait de l'exercice», a ajouté son fils, à Guantanamo, lors d'une exposition photographique dédié au leader historique de la Révolution cubaine. Le blogueur américano-cubain Alberto Muller, de qui est parti la rumeur vendredi, a assuré que Fidel Castro, qui a eu 86 ans en août dernier, ne pouvait plus se déplacer par ses propres moyens et avait été placé sous respirateur artificiel. D'autres opposants le donnent déjà pour mort. Alberto Muller jure que ses sources émanent de proches de la famille Castro. «Tous les deux ou trois mois, Twitter tue Fidel Castro», conteste le blogueur officiel Yohandry Fontana, qui souligne qu'à chaque fois, les rumeurs partent de Miami. » | Par Hector Lemieux | samedi 13 octobre 2012
Friday, May 11, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Cuba could pass legislation allowing same-sex marriage later this year, according to the daughter of President Raúl Castro.
Mariela Castro, the country’s premier sexologist, made the remarks one day after US President Barack Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage, but said Cuba still needs to be "more revolutionary" in its treatment of gays.
Ms Castro said she "has the hope that this year" parliament will pass legislation to legalise gay marriage in Cuba, although the bill under debate by lawmakers here "sad to say is not everything that we would have hoped for."
Castro looked to another of its neighbours, Argentina, as the model after which she would have liked to pattern Cuba's gay rights agenda. » | Source: agencies | Friday, May 11, 2012
NTN24NEWS.COM: Cuba poised to pass gay marriage law: Castro daughter – Famed sexologist Mariela Castro, daughter of the Cuban president, said Thursday she expected her country this year will pass a same-sex marriage law, although she said Cuba still needs to be "more revolutionary" in its treatment of gays. » | Authored by: VALERIA COVO/AFP | Thursday, May 10, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The Pope ended a historic visit to Cuba with a meeting with its ailing former leader Fidel Castro on Wednesday after celebrating Mass in front of hundreds of thousands of Cubans gathered in Havana's Revolution Plaza.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi confirmed that the pair had met, for about 30 minutes at the Papal Nuncio's residence in Havana, but he did not detail what they discussed.
The 84-year-old Pontiff used his sermon to gently prod Communist authorities to embrace change and for Cubans to search for "authentic freedom" as he ended a three day visit to the Caribbean nation.
Crowds had filled Havana's main square overnight, the sprawling plaza surrounded by ten-storey high images of revolutionary heroes Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos where Fidel Castro used to deliver hours long speeches of fiery rhetoric.
The Pope, who began his six-day tour of Mexico and Cuba with an attack on Marxism, asserting that the "ideology as it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality", had made it a theme of his visit to urge increased cooperation between church and state.
With President Raul Castro, who took over from his older brother four years ago, seated in the front row, the pontiff urged the nation to open up to reforms and denounced "irrationality and fanaticism" that many will see as a thinly veiled attack on Cuba's leadership. » | Fiona Govan | Wednesday, March 28, 2012
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"Cuba and the world need change, but this will occur only if each one is in a position to seek the truth and chooses the way of love, sowing reconciliation and fraternity," the pontiff told hundreds of thousands of worshippers and well-wishers, including President Raul Castro, seated front and centre.
"The truth is a desire of the human person, the search for which always supposes the exercise of authentic freedom," the pontiff, 84, told the vast crowd including hundreds of wildly cheering and chanting nuns, and others waving a sea of Vatican yellow and Cuban blue, white and red flags.
Hailing the Cuban government's granting of freedom of religion since 1998, Benedict also said Cubans' quests for truth generally should also respect "the inviolable dignity of the human person."
That sounded very much like an oblique reference to the situation of dissidents pressing for political opening in the Americas' only one-party Communist ruled country. Dozens were rounded up and arrested during the pope's visit, dissident sources said.
About 100 Catholic Cubans marched early on Wednesday from Havana's Catholic cathedral to the mass venue, carrying a statue of their patroness Our Lady of Charity. It was a celebration of the fact that until 14 years ago, religious processions were banned in officially atheist Cuba for decades.
"I came to honour the Virgin of Charity as part of the celebration we are having for the pope's visit," said Ever Marin, 13, who was taking part in a procession for the first time.
About a half million Cubans, on foot as well as packed onto state buses and trucks, thronged the square where revolution icon Fidel Castro famously gave countless addresses to masses of supporters beneath the Jose Marti monument. Benedict XVI was on Wednesday set to meet Fidel Castro, 85, at some point. » | Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The Pope has warned that communism no longer works in Cuba and said the Church stands ready to aid a peaceful transition without "trauma".
Speaking days before the first papal visit to the Caribbean dictatorship of Cuba in 14 years, Pope Benedict XVI said: "Today it is evident that Marxist ideology in the way it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality."
On the plane taking him from Rome for a five-day trip to Mexico and Cuba, he said that the 53-year-old communist system in Havana "can no longer respond and build a society", and called for "new models" to replace it.
Pope Benedict offered the help of the Church in achieving a peaceful transition on the island, saying the process required patience but also "much decisiveness."
"We want to help in a spirit of dialogue to avoid traumas and to help move forward a society which is fraternal and just, which is what we desire for the whole world," he added. » | Saturday, March 24, 2012
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Friday, March 23, 2012
Speaking on the plane taking him from Rome for a five-day trip to Mexico and Cuba, the pope told reporters: "Today it is evident that Marxist ideology in the way it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality.
Responding to a question about his visit to the island, a communist bastion off the coast of the United States for more than 50 years, Benedict added: "In this way we can no longer respond and build a society. New models must be found with patience and in a constructive way."
Benedict offered the help of the Church in achieving a peaceful transition on the island, saying the process required patience but also "much decisiveness."
"We want to help in a spirit of dialogue to avoid traumas and to help move forward a society which is fraternal and just, which is what we desire for the whole world," the pope added.
His comments drew a cautious response from Cuba's government. » | Philip Pullella | ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE | Friday, March 23, 2012
Related »
Friday, March 02, 2012
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