From: "Walter Lippmann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [CubaNews] CubaNews summary 9-20-2001 CubaNews summary 9-20-2001 =============================== Since we are no longer using formatted (HTML) e-mail, you will have to cut and paste to use the links which are supplied in these messages. Cuba continues to be pushed to the sidelines by the 9-11 events and their aftermath, but some material continues to come out and we'll try to present as much as we can find. =================================== ANTI-WAR SENTIMENT AND ACTIONS EXPENDING News reports on these are largely, but not entirely, off the radar screens of the mainstream media, but they can be found on some NPR affiliates as well as through the Democracy NOW In Exile! outlets through the internet. ========================================== GRANMA FEATURES 9-11 AFTERMATH WARNING Coverage of the 9-11 aftermath as seen from Cuba is the lead story in Granma, which also includes coverage of anti-war sentiments developing worldwide. http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html PRENSA LATINA ALSO LEADS WITH 9-11 EVENTS http://www.prensa-latina.cu/NewsSection.asp?Section=ENG&start= &end=&button=1&language=EN AP REPORTS CUBAN GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS: HAVANA -- (AP) -- Cuba confirmed Wednesday it was approached by U.S. officials after last week's terrorist attacks about exchanging information, and called for a prudent response aimed at justice rather than revenge. ``All that is advisable is a calm and brave search for definitive solutions to terrorism,'' the government said Wednesday in the Communist Party daily Granma. The AP report covered Cuba's statement in detail. http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/brknews/digdocs/02382 6.htm FRANCISCO ARUCA REPORTS MIAMI REACTIONS Listen to his daily commentaries at www.rprogreso.com A caller to today's program said, at the very end of the program, that he had attended a reception in Miami for Vicki Huddleston, the head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. Responding to a question from the audience, Huddleston stated emphatically that there was not any evidence ========================================== REP. BARBARA LEE STANDS FIRM AGAINST VIOLENCE The only member of the U.S. Congress to vote against the war drive calls for a broad public movement against war. "It was an agonizing decision," she told The Daily Californian yesterday in a telephone interview from Washington. "I've been charged with being a traitor, a communist and all other sorts of horrible allegations." Lee's offices have been flooded with thousands of e-mails and telephone calls from people who both criticize and applaud her position, she said. Now Lee is turning to her constituency in Berkeley to "rise up" and lead the nation in a renewed pacifist movement. "Berkeley has always lead in terms of clarity on foreign issues," she said. "It's a very enlightened community, and I hope people see that they have the power to do something." http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=6341&ref=search ============================================= HATE CRIMES ESCALATING IN UNITED STATES California's Attorney General Bill Lockyer reports 70 hate crimes in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la%2 D000075438sep20 FEELING LIKE THE ENEMY WITHIN: ARAB-AMERICANS A detailed report on the mood and treatment of Arab-Americans in the Southern California area. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-092001family.story ARAB-AMERICANS GET HARD STARES AT AIRPORTS SAN ANTONIO -- Commercial air travel for Arab Americans has become, at best, an awkward, uncomfortable proposition. Travelers wearing turbans say they are followed by hard, suspicious stares as they move through terminals, and even those business attire feel a sense of being measured as potential sources of menace. Since the terrorist hijackings, several passengers have been pulled off flights because they looked Middle Eastern or have names similar to those on an FBI terrorist "associates" list--only to be subsequently cleared. On Monday night, Ashraf Khan, a 32-year-old San Antonio businessman, was settled in his first-class seat, sipping ice water as he waited to depart from here on the first leg of a two-day journey to his native Pakistan and his brother's wedding. Then there came an announcement from the cockpit: The flight would be delayed for a moment. Khan thought nothing of it. "After a few minutes," he recalled later, "the pilot came up to me. . . . He told me that he's not safe with me flying to Dallas." "What do you have against me?" the incredulous passenger asked. ----------------- Given the added tensions, many Arab Americans simply have decided to give up on air travel for now. "In this atmosphere and climate," said Michel Shehadeh, West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, "I don't dare go to the airport. It's easier to drive than go into a situation where everybody looks at you as if you have a disease." http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la%2 D092001profile JAPANESE-AMERICANS RECALL AND UNDERSTAND They know what can happen when the U.S. government wants to go after an entire community. Report in Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59305-2001Sep19 .html TURBANS MAKE SIKH'S TARGETS OF RACIST ATTACKS While there have been only a handful of incidents reported in the Southland, more than 200 have been reported across the United States by Sikhs, whose faith originated more than 500 years ago in northwestern India. The incidents range from having garbage thrown at them to an Arizona homicide in which the Sikh owner of a convenience store was allegedly shot by a man who called himself a "patriot." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-092001sikhs. story GUN SALES ESCALATE IN 9-11'S AFTERMATH Following last week's terror attacks, gun sales in California rose about 30% over a similar period last year, the state Department of Justice reported. http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la%2 D000075440sep20 DAILY CALIFORNIAN REPORTS THREATS ON ARABS http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=6264 DAILY CAL ON BARBARA LEE CALL FOR PACIFISM http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=6341&ref=search ============================================= FIREFIGHTERS REFUSE FLAG-CARRYING TRUCK MIAMI -- (AP) -- Two Miami-Dade County firefighters refused to ride on a fire engine carrying the American flag, saying Old Glory was offensive, officials said Wednesday. The two firefighters, one an engine driver and the other a firefighter, showed up for work Saturday morning, saw the flag on the truck and refused to ride, telling crew members that the flag represented oppression, said Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue spokesman Lt. Louie Fernandez. The crew chief then ordered the flag's removal so that the seven-member unit could answer 911 calls, Fernandez said. ``He (the crew chief) felt the best thing to do was for the administration to deal with this later,'' Fernandez said. ``This way, citizens were never affected as far as their fire and rescue service.'' Fernandez declined to identify the two firefighters, who work at Station 26 in Opa-Locka, a small town in north Miami-Dade County. He said they have been on scheduled leave since Saturday but will return to work Monday. ``We're getting statements from all the firefighters involved,'' Fernandez said. On Monday, Miami-Dade Fire Chief Dave Paulison ordered all county fire engines to carry the American flag in honor of the firefighters and police officers killed in New York in last week's terrorist attacks. Fernandez said if the two firefighters refuse to ride when they return to work, they ``will be met with severe discipline.'' ``I've had more than 100 phone calls from firefighters around the county who are appalled at this report,'' Fernandez said. ``We lost 400 colleagues in New York. This is our way of expressing sympathy.'' --------------- Miami-Dade County firefighters Jim Moore and Terry Williams on Saturday objected to climbing aboard a firetruck that was sporting a large American flag. The two men are not Muslim, as has been reported. Their objections have more to do with their seeing the flag as a symbol of oppression. ``When asked as to why the American flag was taken off the truck, Moore responded by saying that the flag was offensive to him,'' their supervisor, Lt. Michael Simon, wrote in a memo about the incident. ``Williams agreed. Moore stated that the flag was a symbol of oppression to the black man.'' Williams wrote in a statement that the incident has been blown out of proportion. He and Moore removed the flag because it blocked their view and because of their ``political view about the country's situation.'' Steinfatt said that's not an uncommon reaction. ``Black Americans perceive a lot of areas of discrimination that are not evident to whites,'' he said. ``To some, the flag represents white America, not all of America.'' TWO SEPARATE STORIES IN THE MIAMI HERALD: http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/local/broward/digdocs /070239.htm http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/local/broward/digdocs /070239.htm ========================================= ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES BEGIN: The travel industry is sharply down and the stock market has recorded significant losses. Two major airlines alone announced 40,000 layoff in the coming days. Congress is expected to bail out the companies, but what will become of the workers whose livelihoods are lost? http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/brknews/digdocs/11398 0.htm TAX CUTS AND REBUILDING: UP TO $180, 000, 000, 000.00 (billion) http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la%2 D092001econ =========================================== POSADA CARRILES LAWSUIT ACCEPTED The fight against international got this big boost: PANAMA.- A lawsuit filed in August by Panamanian trade unions against Luis Posada Carriles and three other Cuba-born terrorists was accepted by the First Prosecutor's Office of that country. The four terrorists had planned to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro during the most recent Ibero-American Summit, at a university facility. http://www.granma.cu/ingles/septiem2/37posada-i.html =============================================== ESTELA BRAVO'S "FIDEL" IN TORONTO Elvis Mitchell reports on the Toronto International Film Festival which screened Estela Bravo's FIDEL documementary. He wrote: On Saturday, the public screening of "Fidel," the likable documentary by Estela Bravo, an American-born director living in Cuba, was amusing for several reasons. It's rousing to see the meeting of the film's subject, Fidel Castro, with Nelson Mandela - one of the few people Mr. Castro speaks a little English with - and to enjoy the playful scrapping of two men who represent such tenacious ideals. "Fidel" also shows film clips from the 1950's, in which the young Castro gives an interview in English to Edward R. Murrow, but he has rarely spoken English since. Gabriel García Márquez is also featured; he is an intimate of Mr. Castro, who says the Cuban leader serves as a de facto editor with a better ear than many of the professionals who read his books. ("Fidel" opens with footage of Mr. García Márquez talking with Mr. Castro, a conversation I would like to have seen more of. That interview would be a document for the ages.) The Canadian audience's positive reaction to the the picture's pro-Castro - which is to say, somewhat anti-American - attitude was intriguing in light of recent events. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/movies/20NOTE.html?searchpv= nytToday ====================================== DEMETRIO PEREZ PLEADS GUILTY TO FRAUD One of the more prominent secondary figures in the Elian Gonzalez struggle ended his political career in Miami with a guilty plea to five felony fraud counts. The child had been placed in his private school while he was being held in Miami by the rightist exiles. Here are excerpts from the Miami Herald's report: Suspended Miami-Dade School Board member Demetrio Pérez Jr. will plead guilty today in federal court to five felony counts of defrauding the U.S. government by overcharging two low-income Little Havana tenants, The Herald has learned. Pérez's admission of guilt would end his political career, some four months after his May 29 indictment on 21 counts of mail fraud and making false statements. Each count carried a maximum term of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. One of the most popular politicians in Miami's Cuban exile community, Pérez served on the City Commission from 1981 to 1985. He still runs a weekly Spanish-language newspaper, works as a radio commentator and owns a chain of private schools called the Lincoln-Martí Schools. The schools also get some federal funding, which could be cut off because of the fraud conviction. http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/local/dade/digdocs/01 2404.htm ========================================= ALMOST FORGOTTEN STORY IN FLORIDA The pilot who stole a plane and flew it from Florida to Cuba (and who was promptly returned to the U.S. by Cuban authorities) will have his mental competency assessed by a psychiatrist in Florida. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug =sfl%2D919pilot FOR MORE NEWS ABOUT CUBA AND HOW CUBA IS RESPONDING TO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF 9-11, SUBSCRIBE TO CUBANEWS LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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