US President George W. Bush called on the world to steer Cuba out of its "tropical Gulag" toward democracy, drawing charges from Havana that he is inciting violence.
In his first address since 2003 to focus solely on Cuba, Bush on Wednesday also said he would create a "freedom fund" to promote democratic reforms in Cuba, taking advantage of ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro's fading grip on power.
But he adamantly refused to lift the decades-old US sanctions on the communist island.
"Viva Cuba libre" -- long live a free Cuba -- Bush said in a speech at the US State Department.
Cuba immediately fired back, with Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque accusing Bush of making "a plea for violence, a call for the use of force to topple the revolution and impose his ideas on Cuba."
The influential Cuban American National Foundation welcomed Bush's call for democratic reforms, but said his administration lacked a clear strategy to bring about a change in Cuba. It called for direct an substantial assistance to Cuba's democratic opposition.
Bush called on the international community to invest economic and political capital in Cuba's democracy movements and said countries that do business with Havana were enriching a brutal elite with an iron grip on power.
"The socialist paradise is a tropical Gulag," the president, who shared the stage with relatives of jailed opponents of Castro's regime, said in a reference to former Soviet prison camps for political dissidents.
Castro, 81, continues to be sidelined from power since he underwent gastrointestinal surgery in July last year. Raul Castro, 76, is serving as interim president of Cuba, while his elder brother recovers.
Bush flatly rejected widespread calls for lifting the nearly half-century US economic sanctions imposed after Cuba's 1959 revolution, including possible pending action at the UN.
"As long as the regime maintains its monopoly over the political and economic life of the Cuban people, the United States will keep the embargo in place," he said, to applause from the crowd.
But Bush said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Cuba-born US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez would seek contributions for a billion-dollar "freedom fund" tied to future democratic reforms in Havana.
"Now is the time to stand with the Cuban people as they stand up for their liberty. Now is the time for the world to put aside its differences and prepare for Cubans' transition to a future of freedom and progress and promise," he said.
The fund would provide grants and loans and debt relief to Cubans -- but only once their government has fully embraced core liberties like freedom of speech and of the press and periodic, free and fair multi-party elections.
Bush also called on other countries to make more public shows of support for democracy activists in Cuba, and warned that there may be a price to pay for countries that fail to help.
"The dissidents of today will be the nation's leaders tomorrow. When freedom finally comes, they will surely remember who stood with them," the president said.
He also had a message for Cuba's security apparatus, saying "When Cubans rise up to demand their liberty, the liberty they deserve, you've got to make a choice."
"Will you defend a disgraced and dying order by using force against your own people or will you embrace your people's desire for change?" Bush said.
A senior aide had said on Tuesday that this was not a call for "armed rebellion."
Bush, who never named either Castro, ruled out a softening of US policies if Raul were to take over permanently and enact what some Cubans expect to be piecemeal economic reforms.
"We will not support the old way with new faces, the old system held together by new chains. The operative word in our future dealings with Cuba is not stability; the operative word is freedom," he said.
But he said that he was prepared to allow non-governmental organizations and religious groups to provide computers and Internet access, as long as Havana lifts restrictions on using the World Wide Web.
And he invited young Cubans to take part in a scholarship program.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not