Cuba has mounted pictures of US soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison onto billboards outside the US mission in Havana in retaliation for US Christmas illuminations highlighting Cuban dissidents.
The decorations war on the Malecon avenue along Havana's sea front escalated Friday as Cuba ended wargames intended to dissuade any US invasion.
PHOTO: AP
But President Fidel Castro also met a US delegation that wants to sell 100 million dollars of much needed food and agricultural products to the Communist island.
The Cuban authorities were infuriated when the US special interests section put up Christmas lights that had a neon "75" as the centrepiece surrounded by traditional Christmas trees.
The number was a pointed reference to 75 Cuban dissidents detained by the Communist authorities last year in a crackdown on the opposition.
The chief US representative in Havana, James Cason, was summoned to the Cuban foreign ministry on Monday but refused to take down the decorations.
Cuba responded by putting up a huge billboard in front of the US mission showing the Abu Ghraib abuse images that caused a global scandal earlier this year. The accompanying slogan proclaims: "Fascists Made In USA."
Near the public entrance to the building another image was put up showing an American marine pointing his rifle at the head of a child under the words: "Merry Christmas."
The Cuban authorities have also put up red flags with the Nazi crosses emblazoned on them.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell chided Cuba for the display.
"I don't think that is very wise on their part," Powell said in the latest volley in the holiday season row.
Speaking in an interview with reporters, Powell refused to back down on the US decorations, which he called a gesture of solidarity with political prisoners in Cuba.
"And the Cuban government's response is to put forward and show the world a swastika?" he said.
"I don't think that is very wise on their part, and we will continue to stick by our troops down there, our diplomats down there and our Christmas display, with the `75.'"
A diplomat at the US mission in Havana, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Cuban response was "fanatical and exaggerated."
"There cannot be a better contrast. On one side the United States is wishing Cubans a happy holidays ... and an effort to launch a debate on human rights. On the other there is an assortment of aggressive billboards."
Cuba has not had normal diplomatic relations with the United States since 1961, but each has an interests section in the other's capital for consular business. Their rivalry has regularly spilled over into such undiplomatic antics.
The Communist island this week staged wargames involving hundreds of thousands of regular troops, reservists, students and civilians to prepare for what the authorities have called US plans for an invasion.
Defence Minister Raul Castro, the president's younger brother, said the exercises were intended to make sure the US "does not commit the errors it made in Vietnam and that it is now committing in Iraq."
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
‘RADICALLY DIFFERENT’: The Kremlin said no accord would be reached if the new deal with Kyiv’s input did not remain within the limits fixed by the US and Russia in August Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida this weekend, but Russia on Friday accused him and his EU backers of seeking to “torpedo” a US-brokered plan to stop the fighting. Today’s meeting to discuss new peace proposals comes amidst Trump’s intensified efforts to broker an agreement on Europe’s worst conflict since World War II. The latest plan is a 20-point proposal that would freeze the war on its current front line, but open the door for Ukraine to pull back troops from the east, where demilitarized buffer zones could be created, according to details revealed by
RSS