Fidel: Still A Headliner

On December 13th, 2015

    Yes, Fidel Castro is 89-years-old and still recovering from his near-fatal intestinal illness that struck him in July of 2006. But when he takes pencil in hand, as illustrated by this photo, he still makes headlines. This weekend -- Saturday and Sunday; December 12th & 13th, 2015 -- at least five international news organizations headlined excerpts from a letter the revolutionary legend wrote this week to his friend, Venezuela's harassed President Nicolas Maduro. The worldwide media focused mostly on Fidel's prickly comment that he believes Russia and China "know the world's problems much better than the United States." This sentence also made worldwide headlines: "Therefore it's up to Russia and China, given their historical traditions and revolutionary experience, to make the greatest effort to avoid war and contribute to the peaceful development of Venezuela, Latin America, Asia, and Africa." 

       Latin America presidents, such as Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro above, often visit Fidel Castro in his home. Fidel's letter to Maduro this week was to boost his friend's morale after a National Assembly election in Venezuela powerfully reflected dissatisfaction with the 17-year socialist rule of Maduro and the late Hugo Chavez. Maduro's presidential term runs until 2019 but the super-majority in the National Assembly means he can expect impeachment proceedings to commence and his efficacious economic deals with Cuba to cease. Like other notable democratically elected presidential visits to Fidel's home -- Rousseff of Brazil, Ortega of Nicaragua, Bachelet of Chile, Kirchner of Argentina, etc. -- Maduro is in deep trouble at home and so boosts from their Cuban mentor is in order. The harassed and term-limited Kirchner last month watched her hand-picked would-be successor lose in a presidential election to an anti-Cuba, pro-U. S. capitalist. The same type movements are underway in Chile, Brazil, and...Venezuela! The leftist, or pro-Castro, sands are shifting to the right in Latin America. But with the dawning of a new year, 2016, and his 90th birthday, Fidel Castro...and his legacy...will not be minuscule in the Americas.

      This week CNN Money used the above image with this headline: "Cuba Ripe for U. S. Investments." The astute assessment highlighted the fact that Cuba has shifted from a stoic socialist economy to a Vietnam-style capitalist approach. So, coupled with the rapprochement being engineered by U. S. President Obama, CNN predicts "hundreds of U. S. companies" are eager to invest in Cuba. It cited the bloody, five-year Vietnam War in which the U. S. lost to the Communist North, which united North and South Vietnam under communist rule. After the 1975 defeat, CNN noted that the U. S. had no relations with Vietnam till 1996. After that, U. S. companies invested billions of dollars in Vietnam and President George W. Bush went to Hanoi, put on silk pajamas, and banged a big gong to herald Vietnam's economy. CNN predicted this week that the same thing could happen to Cuba, but the Batistiano-dominated U. S. Congress will certainly try to prevent it. Yet, pugnaciousness is in Cuba's DNA.   

     Meanwhile, the 89-year-old Fidel Castro is not as enthused as his 84-year-old brother, President Raul Castro, when it comes to normalizing relations with the United States. But even Fidel realizes that Cuba, to survive, must tolerate a northern neighbor that is the world's economic and military superpower. Also, Fidel realizes that his policies left Cuba vulnerable by depending too much on one supporter -- such as the Soviet Union till its collapse in 1991 and the near collapse of President Maduro's oil-rich but cash-poor government in Venezuela. But, as his headline-making letter to Maduro indicated this week, Fidel Castro is still...well, FIDEL CASTRO!!

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The U.S-Cuba-MAFIA Triangle

A Nexus From 1952 Till Today
Saturday, December 12th, 2015

       President Luis Guillermo Solis of Costa Rica is the latest Latin American leader caught up in the tangled web of U. S. laws designed to hurt Cuba and to empower and enrich Cubans once they defect to the United States. President Solis right now is beside himself over 4,500 Cubans stranded in his country for weeks now. They are a product of Wet Foot/Dry Foot, a U. S. law dating back to 1966 that encourages Cubans to defect and if their front foot touches U. S. soil they immediately have instant legal residency and welfare. Of course, that law and many others pertain only to Cubans, acutely discriminating against non-Cubans. Fearing that President Obama's peaceful overtures to Cuba will end Wet Foot/Dry Foot, thousands of Cubans are trying to flock to the U. S. via the Mexican border, some reportedly paying traffickers up to $15,000 to make the journey through eight countries. Some 4,500 Cubans made it as far as Costa Rica but were stopped at the border with Nicaragua, with Guatemala and other countries supporting Nicaragua. At his wit's end, President Solis this week announced that Costa Rica would fly them to Belize and from there they could reach U. S. soil. But Belize refused that plan. So, President Solis is caught in a quandary.

 Some of the 4,500 Wet Foot/Dry Foot Cubans stranded in Costa Rica.

          President Solis of Costa Rica -- vexed by Wet Foot/Dry Foot -- will fly to Cuba tomorrow, December 13th, for an important 3-day visit. He will lead a huge contingent to Cuba -- 31 government officials and 50 business leaders. Only in 2009 after President Obama replaced anti-Cuban President Bush in the White House did Cuba and Costa Rica restore relations. President Obama has made other great strides in normalizing relations between the U. S. and Cuba but only the U. S. Congress can put an end to such laws as Wet Foot/Dry Foot that have, for decades, harmed Cuba and many other countries in the region while also sating the revenge, economic, and political appetites of Cuban-Americans. Presidents caught in the middle, like Mr. Solis in Costa Rica, are astounded that the American people meekly allow a handful of Cuban-Americans and their easily acquired sycophants to so easily dictate such laws in the U. S. Congress. President Solis said, "We have waited many decades for America to conduct a sane approach to Cuba."

        This map shows the long, circuitous journey -- from Cuba to Ecuador to Colombia to Panama and to Costa Rica -- that the thousands of Cubans had taken before being stopped at the Nicaraguan border.

Anti-Cuba, yes; anti-world, si.

        USA Today yesterday -- Friday, Dec. 11th, 2015 -- had a full-page update on the 4,500 Cubans stuck on the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border. It shows the insightful graphic above by USA Today's Janet Loehrke. The article was written by USA Today's Cuban-American Miami-based journalist Alan Gomez, and it is fair and balanced. Gomez quotes Frank Mora, the Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University in Miami. Mora said: "The question from Central Americans is, 'So why is it that Cubans have these privileges while Salvadorans and Mexicans have to go back to their country?' That creates tensions in the region." It surely does but most of the mainstream media in the U. S., especially the television networks, don't have the guts or the integrity to even discuss the anti-democratic issue that Mr. Mora in Miami just discussed in yesterday's USA Today.

     This is the fair-minded Frank Mora -- born, reared, and educated in Miami. His comments in USA Today Friday are typical of his democracy-loving appraisals of U.S.-Cuban relations and how they relate to Latin America and the Caribbean. It is a shame, I believe, that Miami -- which has a wealth of fair-minded individuals -- sends only Cuban hardliners to the U. S. Congress, which keeps in place a litany of anti-Castro laws that don't hurt Castro but indeed hurt many, many other people.

         Yesterday-- Dec. 11th, 2015 -- Cuba's media, including the popular Cubadebate blog, used the above photo to illustrate a note 89-year-old Fidel Castro wrote to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The photo shows President Maduro on a recent visit to Castro's home in Havana. The first sentence of Castro's "Dear Nicholas" note to Maduro was: "I join the unanimous opinion of those who have congratulated you on your brilliant and courageous speech on the night of December 6." That was a reference to the concession speech Maduro made after last Sunday's National Assembly election in Venezuela gave a super-majority to Maduro's bitter opponents. With that super majority, Venezuela's National Assembly can now {1} begin impeachment proceedings against Maduro, whose term as President runs till 2019; and {2} the National Assembly now has the power to end Venezuela's very vital oil shipments to Cuba. In his December 6th speech, Maduro surprised some by saying he would "accept" the National Assembly vote. Fidel, in his note, seems to agree with that calm acceptance...but what transpires in the National Assembly-vs.-Maduro tugs-of-war in the coming days will be worth watching -- by all Venezuelans, Cubans, and Americans.

     Hotel Anton in Cienfuegos; Cuba is renovating its best hotels as fast as it can.

      Hotel Nacional in Havana, Cuba; legendary when the Mafia ruled Cuba in the 1950s and still legendary to this day. Presidents, Kings, Queens, and celebrities stay here.

     Another view of Hotel Nacional as a recent influx of tourism blankets the island.

         The Riviera Hotel in Havana; it was built in 1957 by Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky and it still glistens above the Malecon seawall today after a recent renovation.

     Gary Rapoport, the 60-year-old grandson of Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky, this week has shined the spotlight back on the Mafia-U.S.-Cuban nexus that began in 1952 and continues to this day. It all started in 1952 when the U. S. government teamed with the top echelons of the Mafia -- Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky -- to support the brutal, thieving Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. In 1957, unmindful of the Celia Sanchez/Fidel Castro-led revolution that was gaining traction far to the southeast in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra Mountains, Meyer Lansky spent $8 million {now about $32 million} of his considerable fortune to build the Riviera Hotel, complete with air conditioning and a plush casino that made Las Vegas casinos look second-rate. Gary Rapoport, a resident of Tampa, Florida, this week made headlines by announcing that he and other Lansky heirs are demanding that Cuba either return the hotel to them or pay them what it is worth. Gary told The Tampa Tribune Tuesday that Cuba took the Riviera Hotel "forcefully" from his grandfather after the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959 chased Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders off the island, mostly to nearby South Florida. And then on Wednesday, Gary told NBC-6 South Florida that he is aware that Cuba and the U. S. are now discussing financial claims the countries have against each other. He said: "We never filed a claim with the government or hired an attorney earlier because we didn't think the door for negotiating would ever actually open."

     Gary Rapoport says he has very fond memories of his grandfather, Meyer Lansky. Gary is shown here with a photo of his high school graduation with his granddad Meyer Lansky in attendance. Gary's dad, Marvin Rapoport, owned lavish horse farms in New York and Pennsylvania. Gary Rapoport now works for a bank in Tampa.

    This photo, courtesy of Gary Rapoport, shows Meyer Lansky's family in the 1940s. The two boys standing at the left are sons Paul and Buddy. Their mother Anne is sitting beside Meyer's only daughter, Sandra. She is Gary Rapoport's mother.

     This montage shows Meyer Lansky and his only daughter Sandra {he called her Sandi} on a trip to Israel. Sandra is the mother of Gary Rapoport, the grandson trying to reclaim Lansky's Riviera Hotel from Cuba. In the upper right, Sandra is holding a photo of her beloved father. In the lower right, the image of famed entertainer Dean Martin is appropriate. Sandra wrote a best-selling book about growing up as Meyer Lansky's daughter. The most quoted passages from the book relate to the Mafia's "gangland" hold on Las Vegas. In the book Sandra intimately detailed her sexual relationship with Las Vegas star Dean Martin. The page depicting Martin's six-times-in-one-night prowess is dizzying, and she wasn't talking about him singing six songs.

      This photo shows Lucky Luciano, on the left, and Meyer Lansky just as they were slugging their way...murdering, actually...to the top of New York-New Jersey's criminal empire known as the Mafia. Lucky was born in Italy in 1897 when his name was Salvadore Lucania. He was small, just 5-foot-8. Meyer was born in Belarus in 1902. He was smaller, just 5-feet tall. Lucky died of a heart attack at the airport in Naples in 1962 when he was to meet a Hollywood producer interested in a movie about Lucky's life. Lucky was flown back to New York City and buried there. Meyer died in Miami Beach in 1983 and is buried there. The two lifelong buddies are credited with expanding the Mafia into a national crime syndicate known as The Commission, which was run like a corporation -- but one that ruthlessly eliminated all competition.

       This photo shows a part of the first Commission that Luciano and Lansky designed in 1931 at a Mafia meeting held in Atlanta City, New Jersey. They wanted the greater New York area to be divided into five Mafia families with Lucky and Meyer dictating the leaders, such as the five early friends depicted above. Note that second from the left is Ben "Bugsy" Siegel. Siegel was the famed builder of Las Vegas's gambling empire till Lucky and Meyer, at a famous meeting in Havana at the National Hotel, ordered his assassination. And Luciano-Lansky orders were carried out. 

Bugsy is famed as the Mafia builder of Las Vegas.

       Bugsy's famous death sentence was indeed handed down by Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky in Cuba although Bugsy, like Meyer, was Jewish. Lucky and Meyer believed Bugsy was skimming money from the Flamingo Hotel that Bugsy so doggedly had built in the Nevada desert, spawning the world-famed city of Las Vegas.

       These are the three Mafia kingpins -- Santo Trafficante, Meyer Lansky, and Lucky Luciano -- that dominated the Havana Mob during the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship of Cuba from 1952-1959. Meyer and Lucky were the decision-makers and Santo ran several of the primary casinos. Santo and his father were the Mafia kingpins of Tampa for four decades before and after the Mafia's rule of Cuba in the 1950s.

       Left to the U. S. government and the U. S. media, Americans would believe that the Batista dictatorship in Cuba in the 1950s was led by Mother Teresa-types. In that milieu, movies have done a far better job of depicting the Mafia in the U. S. and in Cuba even with its cinematic embellishments. In "Godfather II," for example, Meyer Lansky was played by the Hyman Roth character, on the left above. Meyer was also a key factor in the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire." All leading Mafia figures, most of whom never had any real problems with law enforcement, have been vividly depicted in movies. That's how, for example, we actually learn that Meyer Lansky did, in fact, tell Fulgencio Batista in Florida, "I've always wanted the Mob to own its own country." That dream was then realized in Cuba till the Cuban Revolution intervened. Also, as the Hyman Roth character in "Godfather II" reminded us, Meyer Lansky in Cuba did say, "We are bigger than U. S. Steel!" and, counting the Mafia holdings in Havana, New York, and Las Vegas at the time, they certainly were big. REAL BIG!!!!

      According to the Batistaino-directed Cuban narrative in the United States since 1959, these are the three Mother Teresa-type men who treated the everyday Cubans so nice during the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship from 1952 till sunrise on January 1, 1959. Left to right, the Big Three Mafiosi in Havana from 1952 till 1959 were Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Fulgencio Batista. Uh, yeah, really! Mother Teresa-types! 

      To my mind, the photo above is an example of how the U. S. government and the U. S. media -- as opposed to movies and a few brave historians -- have, since the 1950s, steadfastly presented to Americans only the Batistiano version of the Cuban Revolution, which was primarily a unique female-orchestrated endeavor. Cuban females and children were the primary victims of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in the 1950s. And Cuban females, like the victorious ones above, were the rebels mostly responsible for chasing the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and the U. S. executives off the island. If that fact is too much for the Batistianos to stomach to this day, so be it. This is one of Tete Puebla's favorite photos. That's her on the left with some of the other female guerrilla fighters that doomed Batista, Lansky, and Luciano in Cuba...although, unfortunately, their American sanctuary was awaiting them.

       Today Tete Puebla is a General in the Cuban army. I met her in 2004 when the Bush administration gave me permission to visit Cuba for the purpose of researching my biography of Celia Sanchez, Cuba's greatest revolutionary heroine and a guerrilla fighter right beside Tete. So, I can testify that General Tete Puebla is a sweet lady and easy to talk to. I have been reminded of that this week when I have read a plethora of articles about Meyer Lansky's grandson in Tampa, Gary Rapoport, demanding that Cuba repay the Lansky family for Meyer's loss of his splendid Riviera Hotel to the victorious Cuban Revolution. My thought is this: Why doesn't Gary Rapoport travel to Cuba and ask General Puebla face-to-face if she thinks Cuba should return the Riviera Hotel to the Lansky family? I would love to see how Tete would answer that question.

Tete Puebla, interviewed about her biography.

Celia Sanchez, the greatest Cuban {my opinion}.

"Native Flower of the Cuban Revolution"

Fidel Castro's favorite photo of Celia Sanchez.

Fidel Castro's favorite portrait of Celia Sanchez.

Writer Mercedes Rodriguez Garcia admiring portrait of Celia Sanchez.
This is in Santa Clara; Mariposa is Cuba's state flower.

Celia Sanchez portrait amid Mariposa flowers.

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Cuba-US Revelations Today

Still Powerful Pros and Cons

       ATTENTION LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! The photo above shows the plush Hotel Riviera in Havana. It was built by the Jewish Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky and opened in 1957. It was nationalized in 1959 when the Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Yesterday -- December 8th, 2015 -- the family of the late Meyer Lansky let it be known that they want Cuba to return the hotel to them or give them cash for what it is worth. I KID YOU NOT!! A great journalist -- Paul Guzzo of The Tampa Tribune -- reported Tuesday that 60-year-old Lansky grandson Gary Rapoport of Tampa, Florida, said: "The hotel was taken forcefully from my grandfather. Cuba owes my family money." That quotation would be funny, of course, except for the fact that the Batistianos and the Mafiosi, who raped and robbed Cuba at will from 1952 till 1959, have continued, from the sanctity of U. S. soil, to be supported by a U. S. Congress consistently passing and enforcing pro-Batistiano, anti-Cuban laws.

         This is mobster Meyer Lansky in Israel with his only daughter Sandra, the mother of Tampa's Paul Rapoport, the man who says Cuba owes his family for taking over Lansky's Hotel Riviera.

A best-seller written by Sandra Lansky.

           The photo above was used in Life Magazine in 1958 when it was the most-read magazine in the United States. It shows Meyer Lansky leaving his Riviera Hotel beside a young woman and carrying a satchel that Life said contained $200,000 cash, reportedly one night's loot from the vast gambling-prostitution-drug enterprise that Lansky directed in Cuba for the Mafia and dictator Fulgencio Batista. Then as now, Americans were well informed about the U.S.-backed Mafia-orchestrated rape and robbery of Cuba from 1952 till 1959. Yet, then as now, Americans don't give a damn. That's why, yesterday -- Dec. 8th, 2015 -- Meyer Lansky's grandson in Tampa, Gary Rapoport, feels he has a lot of support in demanding that Cuba repay his family for their loss of the Riviera Hotel. Yes, that is a true updated story. But everything regarding U.S.-Cuban relations since the 1950s have {1} been stranger than fiction; and {2} have shown little regard for the sacred pillars of the U. S. democracy. That's why, I believe, Mafia-aficionados and Democracy-lovers alike are fascinated with Cuba. Study the revelations attached to the above photos and see if you agree.

       After fleeing the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, Meyer Lansky returned to a safe haven in Miami and that's where he died, at age 81, in 1983. In addition to such Cuban property as the Hotel Riviera, Lansky reportedly accumulated vast holdings in Miami, New York, Las Vegas, and Israel. He is renowned today as the greatest Mafia financial genius with Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Miami being his three favorite cities, along with Batista's Havana in Cuba till January 1, 1959.

Meyer Lansky is buried at Mt. Nemo Cemetery in Miami, Florida.

Photo courtesy: Ramon Espinosa/The Associated Press

       The photo above shows Javier Yanez placing a U. S. flag beside his Cuban flag on his balcony in Havana. The date was Dec. 19-2014, the day Presidents Obama and Castro went on television at noon to announce that they were trying to normalize relations. Since then the two nations have opened embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961; Cuba has been removed from the U. S. Sponsors of Terrorism list; and the U. S., thanks to brave overtures from President Obama, has lifted some travel restrictions allowing more Americans to visit the island.

    But Josefina Vidal, Cuba's prime negotiator on all items related to the United States, remains well aware that "four members of the U. S. Congress from Miami can continue to use a bullied Congress to punish innocent Cubans for another six decades or longer." She was referring to the four current Miami Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress -- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Carlos Curbelo. AND SHE'S RIGHT. Vidal is aware that President Obama has only one year left in office. She is also aware that when the three previous Democratic presidents -- Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton -- tried to normalize relations with Cuba, the Miami Cubans teamed with Republican sycophants to easily not only stop them but to pass even harsher congressional laws against Cuba. That's exactly what Vidal expects to happen with Obama's overtures too. "I don't expect the American people," she says, "to care about innocent Cubans on the island. But I am surprised they care so little about their democracy to allow a handful of Cuban exiles and their associates to usurp the U. S. government for their own revenge and power while the rest of the world cringes." Yet, Vidal is the one who has negotiated more detente with the United States than anyone since the 1950s. Last week she was back in Washington continuing important negotiations. Yesterday -- December 8, 2015 -- she was in Havana hosting key U. S. diplomats and hoping to negotiate some more.

      Josefina Vidal is quite aware that when Miami Cubans pushed through congressional laws such as The Cuban Adjustment Act, The Torricelli Bill, The Helms-Burton Act, etc., they codified in supposed perpetuity a law that mandated that the U. S. could never normalize relations with Cuba as long as there were still claims in the U. S. against property nationalized by Fidel Castro shortly after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January of 1959. But in Havana yesterday Vidal was willing to negotiate that stumbling block. The U. S. claims that nationalized U. S. property was worth $1.9 billion and, with inflation and interest, is now worth $8 billion. The largest claim against Cuba, Vidal was informed, is $267 million that the Cuban Electric Company was perceived to be worth in 1959. That company's ownership has changed several times and is now owned by Office Depot. Vidal was told that the individual claims against Cuba only amount to about $200 million, a figure even that cash-challenged Cuba could handle. Vidal told the U. S. negotiators yesterday that Cuba has settled claims with Canadian and Spanish companies and individuals. She was told that U. S. companies will likely be willing to settle with token payments as long as Cuba allows them to return and do business on the island. Vidal's reaction: "Fine. That's a good point concerning U. S. claims against Cuba. Now, what about Cuba's claims against the U. S. One of our accountants tabs that as $1 trillion. That factors in...the embargo since 1962; the theft of Guantanamo Bay since 1903; and countless deaths and injuries from terrorist attacks that have included airplane and hotel bombings as well as air and boat strafings by cannon-fire on our coastal areas." Vidal, for Cuba's sake, wants normal relations with the economic and military colossus just off the island's northern coast. She knows that Miami-directed congressional law about U. S. monetary claims against Cuba will almost certainly derail any real chance for normalizing relations with the U. S. Yet, she is a brilliant and stubborn negotiator. "Not even a nuclear power next door can scare Cuba, and I think we have proven that is so even as, from the Bay of Pigs till today, a few Cuban exile revenge-seekers have been allowed to set U. S. policy regarding us. Negotiations with us have to show respect for our sovereignty. That includes these claims."

        Richard Feinberg is a fair-minded expert on the Cuban economy at the Washington-based Brookings Institute. He is keeping a close eye on this week's Cuban negotiations with 15 creditor nations known as the Paris Club that have had long-standing claims against Cuba. Those nations are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. They still claim Cuba owes them $16 billion and Feinberg believes Cuba is willing to repay $5 billion on easy terms while the Paris Club is willing to forgive $11 billion with the understanding that those nations can conduct future business in Cuba. Feinberg says, "A comprehensive deal would go a long way toward normalizing Cuba's international financial relations." The U. S. embargo since 1962 has prevented Cuba from having financial dealings with the World Bank and other international institutions that most non-embargoed nations depend on. Most experts agree that Cuba is unique for surviving them for so long.

     Marc Frank, the great journalist for Reuters, has lived mostly in Cuba for a quarter of a century and is the best source for insightful and fair-minded articles from the island. In yesterday's article regarding Cuba's negotiating with the U. S. and the Paris Club regarding compensation, Marc Frank wrote: "Cuba has had a trade and current account surplus since 2011 and has improved its payments record to creditors and suppliers." Except for Paul Guzzo at The Tampa Tribune, Marc Frank is about the only well-known journalist in the UK or the US with the guts and integrity to report fairly on Cuban issues, be they positive or negative. Most of the others seem to clear their reporting with the Miami Mafia, but not Mr. Marc Frank.

       This Marc Frank book features a cornucopia of fascinating revelations about Cuba that he didn't clear with the Miami Mafia. So, it's truly a must-read about Cuba.

        The photo above is courtesy of Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel. It was taken yesterday - - December 8th -- at Florida's Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. It shows U. S. Marshalls arriving from Havana with a fugitive named Shawn Wegmann. He is an Indiana man wanted on firearm violations and was reportedly an enforcer for a motorcycle gang. He allegedly stole a small boat in Key West and fled to Cuba. Although unheralded, Cuba often turns over captured fugitives at the request of U. S. Marshalls. Cooperation between the U. S. and Cuba often goes unreported because the U. S. media generally fears upsetting the lucrative Castro Industry in the U. S.

        Cuba tries real hard to protect is vast coastlines. Above is the photo that the United States Marshalls sent to Cuba showing the boat Shawn Wegmann allegedly stole in nearby Key West so he could flee to Cuba. Cuba said thanks for the information. Yesterday the U. S. Marshalls thanked Cuba for turning Wegmann back over to them.

     Yasiel Puig is the awesomely talented Cuban outfielder with the Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball's richest team. Major League Baseball yesterday reluctantly agreed that Yasiel can accompany its troupe of current and former superstars that will travel to Cuba for a three-day Good-Will trip next week -- December the 15th through the 18th. Yasiel turned 25 this week; he was born December 7th, 1990, in Cienfuegos, Cuba. He defected to the U. S. in 2012...barely! He was kidnapped in Mexico and the smugglers threatened to kill him unless a well-known person in Miami paid them $250,000. {The Wikipedia bio of Yasiel mentions that Yasiel ended up paying "Cuban-American Mafia" members $1.3 million and $500,000 for securing his release. Prior to making his debut with the Dodgers on June 3, 2013, Yasiel had signed a $42 million, 7-year contract.} Yasiel became an instant superstar with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but a troubled one. Hopefully, his troubles will end very soon.

      This mugshot of Yasiel Puig relates to a recent altercation in a bar in which he allegedly pushed his sister and then had a bloody fight with a bouncer. That almost caused Major League Baseball to keep Yasiel from being on the star-studded Good Will trip to Cuba next week that will include three other Cuban Major League stars. But, after much deliberation, Wednesday it was announced that Yasiel will now accompany the entourage to Cuba.

    
     This photo shows Yasiel Puig celebrating a victory for the Los Angeles Dodgers with ace pitcher Clayton Kershaw, #22. There have been reports this winter that Puig will be traded by the Dodgers because Kershaw and other teammates "are fed up" with his behavior. But Kershaw denies those reports and it appears it was Kershaw who persuaded MLB to allow Yasiel to go on the Good Will trip to Cuba next week. That belated announcement by MLB noted that Kershaw and Yasiel will do "charity work" in Cuba next week. Kershaw and his wife are well known for their charity work in America and Africa. Kershaw has a long-term contract with the Dodgers exceeding $30 million a year. Yasiel is making "only" $4.5 million a year now but, minus his off-the-field problems, he has the talent in money-crazed Major League Baseball to one day match Kershaw's enormous paychecks.

          This photo is courtesy of David Kohl/USA Today Sports. Incredibly, Aroldis Chapman this week is making more news in Los Angeles and Major League Baseball than his fellow Cuban Yasiel Puig. Chapman was born 27 years ago in Holguin, Cuba. He defected in 2009 and by 2010 with the Cincinnati Reds he had become a legendary closer. He has a record-setting 105-mph fastball and reached 500 strike-outs in the Majors faster than any pitcher in history. Chapman was paid $8.05 million this year by Cincinnati but he is a free agent and the Reds cannot afford his next multi-year salary. The Los Angeles Dodgers can and they traded for Chapman but the deal is on hold now. That's because of an October 30th incident in which Chapman is accused of choking his girlfriend and firing eight gunshots into the basement of his Miami-area home, with one of the bullets blasting through a window and ending up in a field. His girlfriend told the police the incident started when she discovered something on Chapman's cellphone.  

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