Raul Castro News

Cuba's state-run economy has been in crisis mode for years, but it's facing some especially sobering arithmetic now.

The Cuban flag stands outside a hotel of the Spanish Melia hotel chain in Havana March 17, 2008.

" Cuban authorities should cease all attacks on human rights defenders, journalists, bloggers and civic activists, Human Rights Watch said today.

Secret police agents abducted and beat award-winning blogger Yoani Sanchez, whose online reports chronicle the dark side of everyday life in communist Cuba, on her way to a march for non-violence, she said Saturday.

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A senior Vatican official said Friday he has asked Cuba's government to allow the Roman Catholic Church more access to mass media, saying Cubans are a religious people and should be given broadcast access to their pastors.

The European Union's development commissioner wants Cuba to show signs it's serious about protecting fundamental human rights.

Havana -- The habanero peppers, oranges and peanuts cost more at Cuba's free-market 'agros' -- farmers markets where vendors, not the government, set prices.

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A PILOT has been hailed a hero for saving the lives of nine passengers by ditching his plane into the ocean - a move that claimed his life.

Complaining about the government is a national pastime on this communist-run island, but it's a tradition typically practiced indoors.

President Hugo Chavez said he met privately with actor Sean Penn on Wednesday, and that the Oscar-winning celebrity may film a movie in Venezuela.

The habanero peppers, oranges and peanuts cost more at Cuba's free-market "agros" - farmers markets where vendors, not the government, set prices.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner is practicing Cuban politics as usual: The Brookings Institution's Ted Piccone on how Obama's new course of multilateral engagement isn't changing anything between Washington and Havana.

Photograph: Mayangdi Inzaulgarat/EPA The actor Sean Penn has flown to Cuba to chase what would be the biggest scoop of his career as a part-time journalist: an interview with Fidel Castro.

Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project - which envisioned 16 skyscrapers, eight acres of open space, more than 2,250 units of below-market-rate housing, new top-of-the-line office space and a publicly financed basketball arena at the center - now consists of little more than the arena and two scaled-back residential buildings, the ...

Sean Penn is playing "journalist" once again and has landed in Cuba, a country that routinely censors journalists, ranks near the bottom of the Press Freedom Index and has imprisoned more journalists than any other country except for China.

From those fans of dictators of all stripes at Reuters : Obama asked Spain to deliver message to Cuba: report MADRID a ' U.S. President Barack Obama asked Spain to send Cuba a message about reform when he met Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero earlier this month, the newspaper El Pais reported on Sunday.

New York Mets minor league pitcher Rafael Castro has died of an apparent heart attack.

Cuba, in an abrupt about face, is set to abandon the food rationing program that has been the cornerstone of its Socialist revolution since 1962, when the United States imposed an economic embargo against the island nation.