Latest news with #FidelCastro
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
JFK Files: How Cuba's War Of Words Flooded The Americas
Join authors Dennis McCuistion and Dory Wiley for an explosive panel discussion at The Dallas Express' 'Who Killed JFK?' event on June 9, 2025. , , or today! The CIA feared that Cuba's true revolutionary export wasn't fighters—it was a playbook for turning a country's own resources against itself. Newly declassified intelligence files from the 1960s, released by President Donald Trump in March 2025 as part of the broader 'JFK Files' disclosure, detail extensive efforts by Fidel Castro's Cuba to spread communism across Latin America—not through mass invasions or military might, but by subverting nations from within. One such document from then-CIA Director John A. McCone to then-Senator John Stennis (D-MS) is marked 'Secret' and appears to be from the spring of 1963. The document outlines the CIA's assessment of Cuba's subversive strategy as a potent mix of ideological indoctrination, sabotage training, and psychological warfare. According to the report, Cuba offered revolutionaries from across Latin America a chillingly precise deal: 'Come to Cuba; we will pay your way, we will train you…in guerrilla warfare, in sabotage and in terrorism.' Though the Cubans generally avoided supplying weapons or personnel, they promised political support, training materials, demolition guides, secret communication techniques, and, in some cases, funding. The strategy focused on training guerrillas to be self-sufficient and to weaponize their surroundings. Pocket-sized manuals, such as '150 Questions on Guerrilla Warfare' by Spanish Civil War veteran Alberto Bayo, circulated widely. They instructed revolutionaries on how to craft explosives from household items and steal arms from government forces. CIA agents found versions of these texts adapted for countries like Peru, Colombia, and Brazil. In the early 1960s, the CIA leadership believed between 1,000 and 1,500 individuals from almost every Latin American country (except Uruguay) reportedly traveled to Cuba for ideological or guerrilla training. The Cuban government tried to obscure the movement, issuing visas on separate slips to avoid passport stamps and even providing falsified passports. American intelligence used agents within communist parties and foreign customs authorities to track and estimate the scale of this traffic, the director told the senator. The report highlights Cuba's two-pronged media campaign into the United States as an early extension of this subversive agenda. 'Radio Free Dixie,' hosted by North Carolina-born Robert F. Williams, was broadcast in English to Black Americans in the South, while 'The Friendly Voice of Cuba' reached a wider Southern audience. These programs, the CIA noted, could be heard clearly in Florida and across much of the Deep South and represented a subtle yet strategic psychological campaign aimed at undermining American unity. Castro's ambition, the report asserts, was to make Cuba the blueprint for the Latin American revolution. He famously stated in 1960 that he aimed to 'convert the Cordillera of the Andes into the Sierra Maestra of the American continent.' The Sierra Maestra was the mountain refuge from which Castro launched his successful revolution against Batista. 'Socialism,' he argued, could not afford to wait for democratic change—it had to be won by force. And yet, Cuban communism was not as militant as it might seem. The CIA noted that Castro often trod a careful line between the Soviet Union and Communist China. 'Castro's heart is in Peiping but his stomach is in Moscow,' one section reads, referencing the ideological tug-of-war between Chinese revolutionary zeal and Soviet pragmatism. While China promoted all-out militancy, the Soviets favored subversion through legal means. Castro attempted to serve both masters—adopting Chinese revolutionary theory but relying on Soviet material aid. Despite this ideological balancing act, the CIA classified the Cubans and Venezuelans as the only Communist parties in Latin America 'totally committed to terror and revolution.' Other parties, while ideologically aligned, preferred subversion, propaganda, and infiltration to outright violence—at least initially. Several revolutions swept through South America during the decades following Cuba's turn to communism, some succeeding and others collapsing. In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas ultimately overthrew the Somoza regime in 1979 with tactics reminiscent of the Cuban model. In Chile, Salvador Allende's Marxist government came to power democratically in 1970 but was overthrown in a military coup three years later. Guerrilla movements plagued Colombia, Peru, Argentina, and Bolivia, with groups like the FARC and the Shining Path drawing from the ideological and tactical lineage traced back to Cuba's training camps and printed materials. Even where communist revolutions never took root—such as in Brazil, Ecuador, or Paraguay—leftist guerrilla groups launched campaigns of sabotage and terror, often mimicking Cuban tactics. Many of these movements were ultimately suppressed, but not before spreading fear and destabilization. Perhaps the most telling metric of Cuba's nonviolent infiltration was its printed word. 'It may be worth noting,' the CIA director wrote, 'that the postal and customs authorities in Panama are destroying on average 12 tons a month of Cuban propaganda.' Another 10 tons were reportedly confiscated monthly in Costa Rica. These materials, in the form of books, pamphlets, and ideological tracts, were seen as weapons of war. Despite accepting Soviet missiles and troops during the Cuban Missile Crisis—20,000 Soviet personnel were reportedly stationed in Cuba, according to one document—the island's long-term strategy was quieter and more insidious. The CIA concluded that Cuba's effort to spread communism through nonviolent means was far more effective than the Cuban effort to spread communism through violent means.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Barbara Walters takes savage swipe at Taylor Swift in shock resurfaced clips
Barbara Walters was famous for asking provocative questions to some of the world's most fascinating subjects from Monica Lewinsky and Elizabeth Taylor to Fidel Castro. Although she made a name for herself with her bold and probing interview style, the legendary broadcast journalist, who passed away at age 93 in 2022, often, pushed it too far with her guests. In a trailer for Hulu's upcoming documentary, which chronicles the highs and lows of her illustrious career, the TV personality can be seen cruelly confronting Taylor Swift on her love life, taking a swipe at Donald Trump and driving Oprah Winfrey to tears. Back in 2014, Walters grilled the pop star, then 25, on her failed romances as she mused that as she has become 'more famous so have the boyfriends.' 'Her hits chronicle high-profile relationships that blossom, wither, die, and then get turned into song lyrics,' Walters said as a montage of photos with Swift and some of her exes, including Harry Styles, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joe Jonas, John Mayer, appeared. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. While referring to the Grammy winner's highly autobiographical songwriting style, Walters brazenly asked the singer how she ever intends 'to find anybody' to date. Earlier in the interview, Swift acknowledged the double standard in how people view it to be 'brave' when male musicians share their emotion, but 'if a woman shares her experience in writing she's oversharing... or she might be crazy.' The Cruel Summer hitmaker also reflected on the long-running joke that people who date her should 'watch out [or] she'll write a song about you.' When Walters quipped there may be some truth to that one, Swift quickly slammed the 'old' joke, which she said came 'from a place of such sexism.' The remarks were made during ABC's Barbara Walters Presents: The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2014. The Tell Me Everything documentary also highlighted Walters fearlessly going toe to toe with Trump as she claimed people don't see him 'show any humility' and asking Courtney Love if she had 'ever done drugs in front' of her child. 'She asked the question that nobody else had asked,' Oprah Winfrey recalled. 'And asked it in a way that always hit a nerve.' In 1988, Walters caused Winfrey to cry after asking if she wished she had been born white. During the interview, Winfrey hesitantly answered that she did wish she was white when 'growing up in Mississippi.' 'In my mind then white kids were loved more,' she explained. 'Their parents were nicer to them and, so, I wanted that kind of life.' Other standout moments in the trailer included showing resurfaced footage of her telling the Kardashians sisters point-blank that they have no talent, pressing Barbra Streisand on why she never had her 'nose fixed' and asking Martha Stewart why 'so many people hate' her. 'No one ever got out totally unscathed,' journalist Cynthia McFadden said of Walters' unflinching interview style. Disney CEO Bob Iger also praised her for foreseeing 'that celebrities are news.' Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything is set to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 12 and will hit Hulu on June 23.
The Independent
5 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
From Scull to Rigondeaux: the tortuous professional journey of the Cuban prizefighter
Although Scull, who won the IBF super-middleweight championship in October last year, lives and fights around Berlin, Germany, the defending champion actually comes from Matanzas, Cuba. Despite 300 fights in the amateur game, Scull turned professional nine years ago in Argentina, fighting there for two years before having his first bout in Germany. After a few more bouts in Argentina, Scull began fighting solely - with the exception of a decision over Sean Hemphill in Las Vegas last year - in Germany. Why Cuban boxers never turned professional But why, with such a decorated and extensive amateur career, has Scull found himself fighting largely on German soil? The answer, as in most things, is politics. For years, under the rule of Fidel Castro, professional sports were banned in Cuba and the route to them was cut off by the regime. The Castro regime, which came to power in 1962, implemented a ban on professional boxing the same year. In its place, the Cuban government implemented an extensive, widespread amateur programme that dominated the unpaid side of the sport for decades. The result was that Cuba saw many of its star amateurs not turn off to the professional game. Before the ban, Cuba regularly produced legends such as Kid Gavilan, who became the welterweight champion of the world alongside Kid Chocolate, José Nápoles, and the ill-fated Benny 'Kid' Paret. All that changed from 1962, and the few Cuban fighters that made it into the professional ranks did so in spite of the regime, not because of it. Many fled, some to Mexico and many to Miami, where they began careers. Nápoles went to Florida, where he was one of many Cuban boxers - alongside Luis Manuel Rodriguez - to be taken under the wing of famed coach Angelo Dundee. But who did not make it to the US and who refused to switch from the amateur to the professional code? The Cuban boxers that many fans forget The most-mentioned Cuban in that regard was Teófilo Stevenson, who was born in 1952 and died just sixty years later as an old and broken man. Stevenson won the gold medal in the heavyweight division in the Olympics in 1972 (Munich), 1976 (Montreal), and 1980 (Moscow). He was 6'5', and handsome, and supposedly won 302 of 332 amateur fights. If Stevenson had turned over to the professional side of the sport in any of those years, he had all the skills, talent, and natural ability to have stood with George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Larry Holmes, and Muhammad Ali. And yet he declined the opportunity to do so, famously saying, "What are eight million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans?" Stevenson was not the only heavyweight to make such a choice, or to have so much success in the amateur side. After his retirement, Stevenson was followed as a Cuban star by Felix Savon, who won the heavyweight gold medal at the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Olympics. Savon, also, did not turn professional. Recent years have seen Cuba open up more and, consequently, many of its fighters have left to turn professional. Born in Guantanamo, Joel Casamayor went to the US and went on to win multiple world titles. He was followed by Yuriorkis Gamboa, Mike Perez, Yuniel Dorticos, Erislandy Lara, Yoan Pablo Hernandez, Guillermo Rigondeaux, Luis Ortiz, and Yordenis Ugás. Very few Cubans have reached the highest levels of the sport, however, and many have come unstuck with sudden wealth. The sport has yet, since 1962, to have a dominant champion. Against 'Canelo' Alvarez, could that change this weekend? Watch the very best boxing with a DAZN subscription DAZN is the home of combat sports, broadcasting over 185 fights a year from the world's best promoters, including Matchroom, Queensberry, Golden Boy, Misfits, PFL, BKFC, GLORY and more. An Annual Saver subscription is a one-off cost of £119.99 / $224.99 (for 12 months access), that's just 64p / $1.21 per fight. There is also a Monthly Flex Pass option (cancel any time) at £24.99 / $29.99 per month. A subscription includes weekly magazine shows, comprehensive fight library, exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes documentaries, and podcasts and vodcasts.
The Independent
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Who is Gérard Depardieu? The rise and fall of disgraced French actor convicted of sexual assault
French acting legend Gerard Depardieu has rarely strayed far from controversy but his career and reputation now lie in ruins. The disgraced 76-year-old has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two women, in the most high-profile MeToo trial France has seen to date. He denied the allegations against him, but it is not the first time he has been accused of wrongdoing. Below we look at the turbulent career of one of France's most celebrated performers who met the Pope, dined with Princess Diana and has called Fidel Castro and Vladimir Putin a close friend. Who is Gerard Depardieu? Born the third of six children in a working-class neighbourhood in Châteauroux, France in 1948, Depardieu began life as a street hustler, trading stolen cigarettes and alcohol to American GIs to help his large family make ends meet. His father, Dédé, was an illiterate, alcohol-dependent sheet metal worker; his mother, Lilette, so crushed by poverty, once told him that she considered aborting young Gerard with a knitting needle. In his autobiography Ça s'est fait comme ça ('That's the Way it Was), he recounted robbing the graves of newly buried bodies, getting into fights and prostituting himself to passing lorry drivers. He spent three months in prison after stealing a car. School holidays were spent in the public toilets of Orly airport outside Paris, where his grandmother was an attendant. His early mystique was enhanced by the fact that he ran away from home at the age of 13 and took drama lessons at the behest of a psychologist who urged him to act out his traumas. Since then, Depardieu has won fame and fortune acting in more than 250 films since 1967. As a child, his nickname was Petarou – the little firecracker. As an adult, he was referred to by the late Marguerite Duras, who directed him in two films, as "a big, beautiful runaway truck of a man". In 1970, Depardieu married Élisabeth Guignot, with whom he had two children: actor Guillaume, who died from complications of drug addiction and a motorbike accident, and actress Julie. In 1992, after divorcing Guignot, he had a daughter, Roxane, with the model Karine Silla. From Obelix to Stalin - how Depardieu became the darling of French cinema Internationally, Depardieu is a huge cinematic figure– a Golden Globe winner and an Oscar nominee. Among his 250 film credits are lead roles as varied as dictator Joseph Stalin, a priest, a hunchbacked peasant, fictitious medieval warrior Obelix, a car salesman, a sculptor and a gangster. Depardieu has worked with revolutionary new-wave filmmakers such as François Truffaut, Agnès Varda, Marguerite Duras, Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol. His performance as the ungainly, big-nosed soldier with the romantic soul in Cyrano de Bergerac was praised by critics, winning the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival. And in Abel Ferrara's 2014 feature Welcome to New York he starred as a powerful politician accused of raping a maid in a New York hotel. Sex assault allegations and trial On Tuesday Depardieu was found guilty of trapping a woman he worked with with his legs before groping her in front of witnesses. In an interview with Mediapart, the 54-year-old set dresser said Depardieu made lewd comments, grabbed her forcefully, and had to be pulled away by bodyguards. A second woman, a 34-year-old assistant director, alleged she was groped both on set and in the street. The court sided with both women. The actor has been handed an 18-month suspended sentence, in line with the prosecution's requests, and could face a €75,000 (£62,000) fine. He will also be put on the sex offender register. Depardieu has denied all the allegations and will be appealing the decision. The verdict was welcomed by respresentatives of the victims. "It is the victory of two women, but it is the victory of all the women beyond this trial," said Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, the set dresser's lawyer. "Today we hope to see the end of impunity for an artist in the world of cinema. I think that with this decision we can no longer say that he is not a sexual abuser. And today, as the Cannes Film Festival opens, I'd like the film world to spare a thought for Depardieu's victims." What other controversies has Depardieu been embroiled in? The actor was reportedly blacklisted in Hollywood after being quoted by Time magazine in 1991 as saying he participated in his first rape at the age of nine and joined in other sexual attacks later because in his world "it was absolutely normal." Depardieu has denied making the comment, saying that he has too much respect for women to have ever assaulted them sexually. The actor, who was making a film on the island of Mauritius at the time the quotes surfaced issued a statement that said, "Of course, one can say I had sexual experiences at a very young age, but never rape. ... I am profoundly wounded by what has happened.' Depardieu subsequently accused Time of mistranslating the quote, insisting that he had admitted only to having witnessed rapes. "I have always been treated honestly and justly by the American press," Depardieu said later, expressing bewilderment over the charges. "I have a wife and children. I am not going to let myself be treated as a rapist." Anecdotes about Depardieu's marathon drinking bouts became infamous, and he confessed to drinking 14 bottles of wine a day. In 1998, Depardieu survived a high-speed motorbike crash when he was five times over the limit on the way to the shooting of Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar. No charges were filed against the 49-year-old actor, who underwent surgery to repair damage to his knee, which delayed the $45 million production. Parisian prosecutors dismissed a complaint by actor Hélène Darras, who claimed that he had groped and propositioned her on the set of the 2007 film Disco. The case was abandoned after exceeding the statute of limitations; a dozen other women also lodged allegations against the actor last year. Depardieu, then 75, denied any wrongdoing, and he has not been convicted in connection with any of the accusations against him. The actor was kicked off a flight to Dublin for urinating publicly in 2011. Depardieu apologised and fellow actor Edouard Baer attributed it to prostate issues. In 2014, there was another media storm after he cosied up to Vladimir Putin, who signed an executive order granting him Russian citizenship. He claims to have hit it off with Putin because 'we could both have ended up as hoodlums.' Mr Putin was apparently attracted to 'the fact that I had occasionally been picked up off the pavement dead drunk.'
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Yahoo
State Department issues ominous travel warning for two cruise ports
With the Caribbean made up of 13 countries and 30 territories that were adjoined to different European nations during their colonial periods, the majority of islands across the region now serve as popular cruise stops. The Bahamian capital of Nassau, whose cruise port welcomed a record 5.6 million passengers in 2024, often serves as a the first stop on a wider ship itinerary going on on to islands like Jamaica, Barbados, St. Kitts, Grand Cayman and Trinidad and Tobago. As the southernmost country in the Caribbean, the latter nation sees fewer international tourists — 107,394 in 2024, according to the numbers from the Trinidadian tourism board — due to the time it takes to sail there. The Royal Caribbean () and Carnival () itineraries with Trinidad and Tobago as a stop will typically last at least 10 number will also not be helped by the fact that, on May 7, U.S. State Department has issued a new advisory warning American tourists of "serious risks from crime". Trinidad and Tobago remains at a level three "reconsider travel" rating due to elevated rates of violent crime. "Foreigners and a U.S. lawful permanent resident have been recent victims of kidnapping," the advisory reads. "There is risk of terrorist violence, including terrorist attacks and other activity in Trinidad and Tobago."The advisory then goes on to warn that popular tourist locations like markets and open-air malls, hotels, restaurants and Piarco International Airport pose the risk of "attack with little or no warning." Those traveling are advised to stay aware when passing through isolated areas alone and be especially mindful at night, around banks and ATMs as well as in places outside one's resort. In the same string of State Department updates, Cuba was also targeted with a warning of "crime and unreliable electrical power. While Americans traveling to the island nation still face a series of travel restrictions dating back to Fidel Castro's coup in 1959, Cuba is ranked at the lower "exercise increased caution" rating also shared by countries such as France, Germany and China. International cruise lines such as Virgin and Holland America have Cuban ports like Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba on some of their Caribbean itineraries. Biden's efforts to reverse restrictions on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba — Americans can still go but need to register their reason as one of 12 non-touristic reasons approved by the government — were reversed by Trump on his first day in office. More on travel:Government issues new travel advisory on popular beach destination Another country just issued a new visa requirement for visitors Along with risk of petty crime in popular tourist areas, the latest advisory focuses on a recent string of power shortages both in Havana and resort cities such as Varadero and Cayo Coco that the country has been dealing with since October 2024. "Some large businesses, hotels, hospitals, and institutions use generators during power outages," the advisory reads. "However, they may have trouble keeping the generators running during a long outage due to the inconsistent and scarce availability of fuel."
