BBC News as usual reporting very selectively on Cuba

The last sentence of this BBC report http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-33398655 on a rare Fidel Castro appearance is incredibly one-sided even for the BBC.

'Relations had been frozen since the early 1960s when the US broke links and imposed a trade embargo on Cuba.'

Why did the US break links and impose a trade embargo? Was there no cause? For the lefty activists at the BBC facts as usual are subservient to a cause.

In 2014 China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia became members of the United Nations Human Rights Council - Does that seem right to you?

The United Nations has forfeited the right to make moral judgements.

Israel and the United Nations Human Rights Council - the BBC's reporting vs the truth

The BBC report this morning that:

'Israel has cut working relations with the UN Human Rights Council, officials say, after it decided to investigate Jewish settlements in the West Bank.'

I think that some background to the United Nations Human Rights Council and Israel is required.

'As of 2010, Israel had been condemned in 32 resolutions by the Council since its creation in 2006. The 32 resolutions comprised 48.1% of all resolutions passed by the Council. By April 2007, the Council had passed nine resolutions condemning Israel, the only country which it had specifically condemned. Toward Sudan, a country with human rights abuses as documented by the Council's working groups, it has expressed "deep concern.".

The council voted on 30 June 2006 to make a review of alleged human rights abuses by Israel a permanent feature of every council session. The Council's special rapporteur on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is its only expert mandate with no year of expiry. The resolution, which was sponsored by Organisation of the Islamic Conference, passed by a vote of 29 to 12 with five abstentions. Human Rights Watch urged it to look at international human rights and humanitarian law violations committed by Palestinian armed groups as well. Human Rights Watch called on the Council to avoid the selectivity that discredited its predecessor and urged it to hold special sessions on other urgent situations, such as that in Darfur.

The Special Rapporteur on the question of Palestine to the previous UNCHR, the current UNHRC and the General Assembly was, between 2001 and 2008, John Dugard. Bayefski quotes him as saying that his mandate is to "investigate human rights violations by Israel only, not by Palestinians". Dugard was replaced in 2008 with Richard Falk, who has compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians with the Nazis' treatment of Jews during the Holocaust. Like his predecessor, Falk's mandate only covers Israel’s human rights record.'

So the UNHRC is hardly an unbiased organisation is it? And why should any country take lessons on Human Rights from an organisation whose members at the moment include such supporters of human rights as Saudi Arabia who the BBC report elsewhere today thus:

'In Saudi Arabia, there were at least 82 executions compared to at least 27 the previous year, while Iraq executed at least 68 people, compared to at least one in 2010, according to Amnesty.'

Other members of the UNHRC include other beacons for human rights as Libya (elected when under the Gaddaffi regime), Cuba and heaven help us China. China being a country which the same Amnesty International report as quoted by the BBC says:

'it also noted that China executed more people than the rest of the world put together.

...

Amnesty no longer publishes figures for China, where the data is considered a state secret. The rights group believes the figure to be in its thousands.'

Thursday afternoon catch-up

The usual story; too many open tabs and nowhere near enough time.

1) Are Hezbollah setting up a base in Cuba? Naharnet have the story:

'A U.S. Republican lawmaker has warned that Hizbullah could build "missile sites" in Cuba and pose a threat to the United States.

"Why would you normalize trade with a country that sponsors terror?" Rep. Michele Bachmann asked an audience of supporters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Monday, in response to a question about her position on trading with Cuba.

"There are reports that have come out that Cuba has been working with another terrorist organization called Hizbullah,” she said.

The Shiite party “is looking at wanting to be part of missile sites in Iran and, of course, when you are 90 miles offshore from Florida, you don't want to entertain the prospect of hosting bases or sites where Hizbullah could have training camps or perhaps have missile sites or weapons sites in Cuba. This would be foolish," she added.

Bachmann was apparently referring to an unsourced report in the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera earlier this month about how a handful of Hizbullah members have set up some sort of encampment in Cuba.

The report was never backed up in major publications but was picked up by conservative blogs like Glenn Beck's The Blaze and Andrew Breitbart's Big Peace.'

2) Has the Obama government armed Mexican drugs barons? pajamas media says that they have, that it is not accidental and that the Obama supporting media have deliberately ignored the story:

'Monday’s revelations by Mike Vanderboegh at Sipsey Street Irregulars and David Codrea at the Gun Rights Examiner, corroborated here at PJMedia and expounded upon at Fox News, comprise a “smoking gun” of the one of the most stunning political scandals in U.S. history.

As William Lajeunesse writes at Fox:

Not only did U.S. officials approve, allow and assist in the sale of more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa cartel — the federal government used taxpayer money to buy semi-automatic weapons, sold them to criminals and then watched as the guns disappeared.

I don’t wish to understate it: elements of the U.S. Departments of Justice, State, Homeland Security, and Treasury are responsible for supplying an arsenal to narco-terrorists waging a civil war against an American ally. Our federal government may bear responsibility for at least 200 murders committed with “walked” firearms, in what Mexican Attorney General Marisela Morales describes as a “betrayal” of her country by the Obama administration.

...

But despite the revelations from of documents and testimony obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and repeated calls for full disclosure from senators and congressmen, mainstream media organizations have done everything in their power to bury the scandal. This can only be viewed as a partisan media’s attempt to protect a criminal executive branch.'

3) What really caused the Eurozone crisis? The Street Light Blog has an interesting quotation from Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, from his recent piece in the Financial Times:

Whatever role the markets have played in catalysing the sovereign debt crisis, it is an undisputable fact that excessive state spending has led to unsustainable levels of debt and deficits that now threaten our economic welfare.

4)  Are BBC employees more 'of the left' than 'of the right'? The BBC is meant not to be biased, indeed we are told that impartiality is in its genes. This old Conservative Home piece says otherwise:

'One of the great things about Facebook is that you can find the nichest of niche groups of like-minded people. It has an advertising package to match. You can, for example, upload an ad banner that will appear 10,000 times to female twenty-somethings who live in York and enjoy listening to jazz. This kind of micro-targeting has got to be the next stage of the Party's online advertising campaign. The advertising package has other uses...

BBC employees went Facebook mad earlier this year with 10,580 now having profiles on the social networking site. Many of them chose to specify their political views as either liberal, moderate or conservative (there isn't a socialist option available to the chagrin of many). An advanced search reveals that more than 11 times the number of BBC employees on Facebook list themselves as liberal than conservative:
BBC - 10,580
BBC liberals - 1,340
BBC moderates - 340
BBC conservatives - 120

Former BBC journalist Robin Aitken, who has still yet to be properly interviewed by any of his many former colleagues about his whistle-blowing on its institutional biases, said you couldn't make a cricket team out of the number of Tories at the corporation. He wasn't far wrong!

To show that these proportions don't merely reflect the fact that the student-dominated Facebook is full of young liberal trendies anyway, a search of the UK-wide Facebook population reveals a liberal to conservative ratio of just 2.5 to 1, that's four times less liberal than those on the BBC network:
UK -  6,407,580
UK liberals - 545,240
UK moderates - 251,320              
UK conservatives - 216,660
Narrowing it down to the London network where most BBC employees reside, the ratio is still just nigh of 3 to 1 at 147,340 to 51,760.'

5) Social engineering in education continues apace, as The Independent reports that:

'A controversial plan to rank all A-level students according to the schools they attend – which would allow universities to discriminate against pupils from private schools – is unveiled today by Britain's biggest exam board.

The plan by the exam board AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) provoked a storm of argument among academics and independent schools. There were immediate fears that candidates will be penalised simply because they achieve good A-level results at a good school. Independent schools are also alarmed that the approach could discriminate against disadvantaged pupils to whom they have offered scholarships.'

6) I dislike Marcus Brigstocke, well who doesn't, so I was pleased to see this New Statesman article from 2008 , here's the conclusion:

'All Brigstocke does is preach to the choir. He is the poster boy for an effete, obsolete, undergraduate, Meccano-set humour that can be snapped together in short order. Absolutely nobody, apart from BBC commissioning editors, thinks Brigstocke is funny. He is, in fact, the very opposite of funny. He is the new Jim Davidson.'

7) The Mail discovers that a convicted aider of would-be Islamic terrorists cannot be deported because of human rights legislation and as a result travels on the very tube trains, amongst the very people that he was convicted of trying to assist in the killing of. Richard Littlejohn  has his own take on the story.


8) Archbishop Cranmer ties together the fuss over Andy Coulson receiving severance pay after leaving News International and whilst being employed by the Conservative party with the lack of fuss over Chris Patten's  EU pension. The EU pension point is one that I have raised over and over again, most often with reference to Peter Mandelson. Here's part of the Archbishop's article:

'Robert Peston (BBC) broke the story (which some already knew) that Mr Coulson continued to receive money as part of a 'severance package'. His Grace has done a bit of fishing around on this, and such arrangements are not at all unusual under 'compromise agreements': the reasons may relate to taxation, or some clause to stagger payments to ensure the compromise conditions are met. So the issue appears to be that Mr Coulson was apparently serving two masters - in the words of John Prescott, he was a 'double agent being paid by the Tories & Murdoch'.

If that is the principal objection - or perception - how can Lord Patten simultaneously be Chairman of the BBC Trust and in receipt of an EU pension? He readily gave up jobs (with the Global Leadership Foundation, the International Crisis Group and Medical Aid to Palestine) which might have been perceived as a conflict of interests, but his EU pension of around £100,000 per annum continues to be paid.

Lord Patten's pension is conditional upon him doing nothing to harm the interests of the European Union. According to Article 213 of the Treaty establishing the European Community:

The Members of the Commission shall, in the general interest of the Community, be completely independent in the performance of their duties.

In the performance of these duties, they shall neither seek nor take instructions from any government or from any other body. They shall refrain from any action incompatible with their duties. Each Member State undertakes to respect this principle and not to seek to influence the Members of the Commission in the performance of their tasks.

The Members of the Commission may not, during their term of office, engage in any other occupation, whether gainful or not. When entering upon their duties they shall give a solemn undertaking that, both during and after their term of office, they will respect the obligations arising therefrom and in particular their duty to behave with integrity and discretion as regards the acceptance, after they have ceased to hold office, of certain appointments or benefits. In the event of any breach of these obligations, the Court of Justice may, on application by the Council or the Commission, rule that the Member concerned be, according to the circumstances, either compulsorily retired in accordance with Article 216 or deprived of his right to a pension or other benefits in its stead.

...

 

The BBC already manifests considerable pro-EU bias, but Lord Patten is perceptibly unable to address this lest he be accused of acting against the interests of the Union.

Now, Lord Patten may be an honorable man. But, as Lord Prescott has pointed out, there is the perception of a conflict - of being a 'double agent'.

Why, pray, is the media kicking up such a fuss over payments to Andy Coulson from 2007, but not batting an eyelid over the hundreds of thousands of pieces of silver still being paid to keep the state broadcaster in thrall to the EU?'

9) Why are Turkey kicking up such a fuss over Israel and also Cyprus? The answer is not just anti-Semitism, it is also Gas - lots of GAS. Eagle Speak has the full story:

'So, Turkey has been shaking the war stick at Israel, making big noise over the Israeli blockade of Gaza that last year resulted in the stopping of Turkish ship and the violence that followed. In addition, Turkey is most unhappy with the discovery of large amounts of natural gas beneath the waters off Israel and Cyprus.

...

For Cypriots who always had an Arab-envy, seeing their neighbors drawn in oil while they have to import every drop of it, has been frustrating if not intoxicating. Loren Steffy, the business columnist for the Houston Chronicle, reports: “Just as the Israeli discoveries may transform that country from an energy importer to an exporter, a similar find off the coast of Cyprus could turn the island nation into a major European energy hub”.

Terry Gerhart, the Vice President for international operations of Houston-based Noble Energy declares: “Cyprus could be on the verge of a natural gas revolution. Gas will strengthen the Cypriot economy for decades to come. Cyprus will become the Mediterranean’s energy hub”.

Well, maybe - both Cyprus and Israel are going to have some serious challenges - as noted here:

From Israel, there is good news and bad news.

The good news – and it is huge – is that Israel will soon be awash in natural gas. Gas discovered on the country's outer continental shelf will turn the country from being hydrocarbon-deprived to being a net exporter.

Indeed, Israel is set to become so rich that it is laying the groundwork for creating a sovereign wealth fund for overseas investments in order to protect the country from inflation and the shekel from getting too strong.

The bad news is that with Hezbollah poised to control Lebanon's government, Iran has de facto arrived on Israel's northern border. Even without an Iranian nuclear weapon, this is a grave deterioration in Israel's security.

Already Lebanon has asked the United Nations to guarantee that Israel does not violate the integrity of Lebanon's outer continental shelf, where Iran plans to help Lebanon drill for gas.

Geology is about to change the political geography of the world's most combustible neighborhood.

The two huge gas discoveries are in the Tamar and Leviathan fields. Taken together, the gas reserves are estimated at 26 trillion cubic feet or 10 times larger than Britain's North Sea discoveries.

Since its creation in 1948, Israel has drilled on land for oil and gas with very little success. While the Arab Gulf countries have found and produced massive quantities of oil and gas, Israel has scrounged in the international markets for its hydrocarbons, including coal.

Israel's isolation made this difficult and expensive. In recent years, it has bought gas from Egypt. But Egypt will lose its good customer.

Turkey, once Israel's only Moslem friend – until the botched seizure of a humanitarian ship bound for blockaded Gaza – will be affected too. There were plans for a pipeline that would carry gas from Azerbaijan across Turkey and undersea to Israel. That economic boost will no longer be going to Turkey, but instead will probably go to Greece and Greek Cyprus. There have been preliminary discussions between Israel and Greece about shipping gas through Greece, by an undersea pipeline or a liquefied natural gas train, as an entry point into Europe.

So now, we see new headlines Turkey rattles sabres over Cypriot natural gas drilling:

Prospects of an underwater natural gas bonanza in the eastern Mediterranean have sparked a fresh row between Turkey and the divided island of Cyprus that is also embroiling Greece and Israel.

The Turkish prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, warned last week that he was ready to send warships to the area, both to escort Turkish aid convoys to the Gaza Strip and to monitor Cypriot and Israeli energy projects.

How far Turkey is prepared to escalate tensions will become clearer in coming days.

A Texas-based company, Noble Energy, is due to launch exploratory drilling south of Cyprus soon on behalf of the Greek Cypriots, who represent the island internationally and in the European Union.

Asked about those plans, Egemen Bagis, Turkey's EU minister, warned this month: "It is for this [reason] that countries have warships. It is for this that we have equipment and train our navies."

In the past, Turkey has proved ready to back its positions in maritime disputes with military muscle.

Why is Turkey involved? Ah, the "Cyprus Problem!" '

Turkey invaded and occupied Northern Cyprus but that  gives them a foothold on the island and thus the chance to try and lay claim to Cyprus's gas finds...


10) Finally as the Eurozone gets closer and closer to the abyss, Stop Turkey has an interesting article:

'Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has called for a United States of Europe to be created with Turkey as a full member and Russia as an associate member.

We should "not dither any longer, but get serious with the European core," he said, pointing to the international competition of different world region: otherwise Europe and its nation states will "sink into insignificance" between Asia under Chinese leadership and a re-strengthened America. Schröder supports the goal of a United States of Europe that Ursula von der Leyen[a German politician] had brought up. "The Europe I imagine is more strongly integrated, supplemented with the membership of Turkey and an association with Russia."

Since leaving political office, Schröder has been involved in energy and pipeline projects that involve Russia and Turkey.

He also calls for a joint European finance minister:

"National sovereignty must be relinquished", referring to parliamentary budget rights.

"What the national parliaments give up must go to the European parliament as the highest authority." In addition, he imagines that a "special committee" of the EU parliament could be formed, "consisting of the members of the Euro zone and taking over this monitoring function".

"Great Britain creates the biggest problems." The country is not in the euro, "but the British still want to have a say in the design of the business area." That doesn't go together.'

The answer is always closer union and bringing Turkey into the EU will aid in the destruction of the Judeo-Christian identity of the EU.

Che Guevara hero of the West's liberals, in his own words

“Hatred as the central element of our struggle! Hatred that is intransigent…hatred so violent that it propels a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him violent and cold- blooded killing machine...We reject any peaceful approach. Violence is inevitable. To establish Socialism rivers of blood must flow! The imperialist enemy must feel like a hunted animal wherever he moves. Thus we’ll destroy him! These hyenas are fit only for extermination. We must keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm! The victory of Socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims!”

-- Ernesto "Che" Guevara speaking about Americans, April 1966 Message to the Tricontinental Conference in Havana, Cuba


Remember that whilst the exact number of executions Che Guevara ordered is unknown, conservative estimates range from 400 to 2,000 over his lifetime. Unfortunately, the lack of proper records mean that the exact number will probably never be known. What is clear is that Che guevara was a violent Communist who thought nothing of killing anyone who opposed him.


Do remember this the next time you see an idiot wearing his 'cool' Che T-shirt or meet anyone, not Spanish, who names their son after this 'hero'.

'The growing intolerance of any dissenting opinion - a hallmark of the Left, as my colleagues Ed West and Dan Hannan never tire of pointing out - is deeply unsettling, and always one-sided.'

Milo Yiannopoulos in The Telegraph thinks that '
Twitter is a playground for spiteful Lefty bullies' - 'Well durrr' as the youth say!

Milo wrote this column after appearing on the 10 o'clock show, a Channel 4 show so left wing that I have managed to watch it just the once and can see no reason to raise my blood pressure again by watching another instalment of smug lefties joking with other smug lefties and 'humorously' insulting anyone who doesn't share their world view. Milo seems surprised at the Twitter responses he got to his appearance:

'A charity worker near where I live expressed her desire to, in her words, cut me up. One man recommended - in capital letters, just in case I thought he was joking - that I share my next bath with a toaster. (Stop laughing at the back!) A woman in Leicester went further, saying she wanted to kill me herself. The level of personal invective was staggering, and it left me... well, pretty depressed, if I'm honest. '

I am not at all surprised; the intolerance and hatred expressed by many on the left for anyone who dares to disagree with them and their set views is well-known. I have been the victim of quite a few nasty remarks when I dare to express my opinions in public, whilst I am required to sit quietly whilst friends express the most ridiculous lefty views.

Milo continues:

'The growing intolerance of any dissenting opinion - a hallmark of the Left, as my colleagues Ed West and Dan Hannan never tire of pointing out - is deeply unsettling, and always one-sided. Activist thugs on Twitter can regularly be observed making appalling remarks about, for example, Margaret Thatcher. What would happen if said I was looking forward to raping and suffocating a female politician before dancing on her grave? (I know that sounds appallingly extreme, but I've seen each of those "jokes" made about the former Prime Minister.)'

The attitude of, often, pure hatred towards Margaret Thatcher amazes me. The left have no problem idolising Che Guevara, a man who killed or ordered the killing of thousands of Cubans, and praising Fidel Castro who has been responsible for the deaths of ten of thousands, but Margaret Thatcher is 'that evil woman'!

Reporting Michael Moore

The BBC love lefty film-maker Michael Moore, his views tieing in so closely with the BBC's on US politics obviously, but also Cuba. So I was intrigued that a search of the BBC news website for "michael Moore found no mention of the news that:

'WikiLeaks: when Michael Moore's Sicko film was shown to Cuban doctors, they were 'disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba' '

No Parasan has the details:

'Cuba banned Michael Moore's 2007 documentary, Sicko, because it painted such a "mythically" favourable picture of Cuba's healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a "popular backlash", according to US diplomats in Havana.

The revelation, contained in a confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks , is surprising, given that the film attempted to discredit the US healthcare system by highlighting what it claimed was the excellence of the Cuban system.
But the memo reveals that when the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so "disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room".
Castro's government apparently went on to ban the film because, the leaked cable claims, it "knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them."
…according to the FSHP, the only way a Cuban can get access to the hospital is through a bribe or contacts inside the hospital administration. "Cubans are reportedly very resentful that the best hospital in Havana is 'off-limits' to them," the memo reveals.
…The memo points out that even the Cuban ruling elite leave Cuba when they need medical care. Fidel Castro, for example, brought in a Spanish doctor during his health crisis in 2006.'

 I wonder how long before the BBC report this particular Wikileak? When hell freezes over would seem a fair estimation, although the way the weather is going that may not be too far off!


UPDATE:
It seems that SICKO may well have been shown in Cuba...

That's odd

When the BBC report on upcoming public sector job cuts in the UK it is all doom and gloom and news of protests and denouncements. However when they report on far more extreme measures in Cuba there's not a word of protest; why? In fact the Cuban trade unions are reported as saying

'Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining companies, productive entities and services with inflated payrolls and losses that damage our economy and result counterproductive, create bad habits and distort workers’ conduct... Job options will be increased and broadened with new forms of non-state employment, among them leasing land, co-operatives, and self-employment, absorbing hundreds of thousands of workers in the coming years.'

Even Castro turns against the Cuban model and the BBC wail...

Feel the BBC's pain as they report:

'Cuban model no longer works, says Fidel Castro

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has said the Cuban model no longer works.

He made the comment in an interview with a US journalist, who asked him if Cuba's model was still worth exporting to other countries.

In a previous interview with the same journalist, he criticised Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for what he called his anti-Semitic attitudes.

Mr Castro also questioned his own actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Mr Castro was speaking to Jeffrey Goldberg, a journalist with The Atlantic magazine based in Washington, DC, whom he personally invited to Cuba.

"The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," he told him.

With this comment, it is clear Mr Castro is not abandoning the principles of socialist revolution, says the BBC's Will Grant: rather, it is an overt acceptance by the 84-year-old former leader that state control of the economy in Cuba is gradually being loosened.

The comment came as the current Cuban leader, Fidel's younger brother, Raul Castro, is reducing the state's control of the economy and allowing private ownership on the communist island.

Last month, Raul Castro announced to the National Assembly that small businesses would now be permitted and small business owners would have the right to employ and pay employees.

Recent examples include hairdressers, who are now allowed to run their businesses as private entities, as well as a growing number of taxis and buses. Agriculture and tourism have also opened up to private investment. '

Cuban socialism is not worthwhile exporting admits Castro, I wonder if the Today programme will acknowledge this?

I also note that the BBC report that:

'Over the course of a five-hour discussion, Mr Castro "repeatedly returned to his excoriation of anti-Semitism", and criticised Mr Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust.

"The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust," the former president said.

Mr Castro said that Iran could further the cause of peace by "acknowledging the 'unique' history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence", Mr Goldberg wrote'

What is the world coming to when a BBC hero goes off message in such a way?

The paradise that is Cuba

Here is a little piece on the BBC to make us feel soft and fluffy towards Cuba but it does beg some questions, not that the BBC will ask them:

'Cuba is turning over hundreds of state-run barber shops and beauty salons to employees in what may be the start of a long-expected privatisation drive.

All barbers and hairdressers in shops with three seats or fewer will be allowed to rent the space and pay taxes instead of getting a monthly wage.

The retail sector has long been derided for poor service and rampant theft.

The country's former President, Fidel Castro, nationalised all small businesses in 1968.

'Slow and cautious'

Now his younger brother and successor Raul Castro is trying to modernise the system without jumping to full-scale capitalism.

Other communist countries such as China and Vietnam have long since pushed through market reforms while maintaining political control.

President Castro's first economic reforms involved giving unproductive state-owned land to private farmers.

Some taxi drivers are allowed to work for themselves.

This is his first attempt to deal with shops in the retail and service sector.

It is likely to be a gradual process, though.'

Not the whole story on the BBC re the death of a prisoner in Cuba

The BBC's love affair with Cuba and especially Fidel Castro has been well documented so I was interested to read this short piece of "Breaking News:

"Cuba's leader Raul Castro "laments" the death of a detained activist who had been on hunger strike for nearly three months, its foreign ministry says.

It marks a rare expression by the country's leadership, often rebuked over its human rights record.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo died in hospital in Havana on Tuesday, 85 days after he began refusing food, sparking criticism of Havana from the US and EU countries.

The 42-year-old was arrested in 2003 in an crackdown on opposition activists.

But the Cuban president said neither Mr Tamayo nor anyone else on the island had been tortured. "

Let's see what another left wing media organisation The Guardian has printed some hours earlier than the BBC mini piece:

"A Cuban political prisoner died yesterday after an 85-day hunger strike over alleged beatings and degrading jail conditions.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo, 42, one of Amnesty International's "prisoners of conscience", was so emaciated he was almost unrecognisable when he died at a prison hospital in Havana.

Jailed in 2003 during a political crackdown, he is the first dissident to starve himself to death in almost four decades.

"They have assassinated Orlando Zapata Tamayo. The death of my son has been a premediated murder," his mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo, told the Miami-based El Nuevo Herald in a telephone interview. "They managed to do what they wanted. They ended the life of a fighter for human rights."

There was no immediate response from the Castro government. Authorities have depicted political prisoners as US-funded mercenaries who plotted "counter-revolutionary" acts against the communist regime.

Zapata, a former plumber and member of the Alternative Republican Movement National Civic Resistance Committee, was one of 75 activists arrested during the "black spring" of 2003. He was sentenced to three years for contempt, public disorder and "disobedience" but that was increased to 36 years after he was convicted of acts of defiance in prison.

He stopped eating solid foods on December 3 to protest against what he said were repeated beatings by guards and other abuses at Kilo 7 prison in the eastern province of Camagüey. His back was "tattooed with blows" from beatings, according to his mother.

Two weeks ago she reported he was "skin and bones, his stomach is just a hole" and that bedsores covered his legs. He was so gaunt nurses were unable to get intravenous lines for fluids into his arms and used veins on his neck instead.

Zapata was moved to a hospital at Havana's Combinado del Este prison, but authorities did not try to force feed him, said Elizardo Sanchez of the independent Cuban Human Rights Commission. "His death shows the totalitarian arrogance that is not measuring the human impact of its acts," he told Reuters.

"It's a great tragedy for his family, for the human rights movement in Cuba and for the Cuban government, because there will be protests in Cuba and abroad." The commission, which is illegal but tolerated by the authorities, estimated there were around 200 people in jail for political beliefs.

Relatives were transporting Zapata's remains to his hometown in Holguin province, said Vladimiro Roca, a leading dissident.

Once one of the lesser known political prisoners, earlier this month his case reportedly triggered street protests – a rarity in the tightly-controlled island – which led to dozens being detained.

The last activist to starve himself to death was the student leader and poet, Pedro Luis Boitel, who died in prison in 1972.

Bill Nelson, a US senator from Florida, said in a statement that Zapata's death was "a sad reminder of the tragic cost of oppression and a dictatorship that devalues human life"."

A slight difference in reporting outlook? Whilst the BBC slavishly follows the Cuban regime's line that Orlando Zapata Tamayo's death was 'lamented' by the Cuban regime and reports as straight fact that "the Cuban president said neither Mr Tamayo nor anyone else on the island had been tortured.", The Guardian gives the important background.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was one of Amnesty International's "prisoners of conscience", how can that be? The BBC are always explaining how Cuba is some sort of socialist paradise.

"Zapata, a former plumber and member of the Alternative Republican Movement National Civic Resistance Committee, was one of 75 activists arrested during the "black spring" of 2003. He was sentenced to three years for contempt, public disorder and "disobedience" but that was increased to 36 years after he was convicted of acts of defiance in prison."

No mention of this 12 times increase in prison sentence; why?

When Orlando Zapata Tamayo claims that he experienced "repeated beatings by guards and other abuses at Kilo 7 prison in the eastern province of Camagüey. His back was "tattooed with blows" from beatings, according to his mother." the BBC say not a word. But if an ex-prisoner at Guantanamo Bay (500 miles away) claims he was mistreated it is headline news on the BBC; why?

"Once one of the lesser known political prisoners, earlier this month his case reportedly triggered street protests – a rarity in the tightly-controlled island – which led to dozens being detained."

"Tightly controlled island"? And yet the BBC don't seem to want to report the lack of freedom in Cuba; why?

The workers paradise of Cuba

The BBC do normally enjoy telling the poor British how much better life is in Cuba than here, so I was 'surprised' that they have decided not to report, as The Telegraph do, that: "Cubans can enjoy a new freedom from this week - citizens of the communist island can now buy potatoes and peas without restriction."

That's odd the I don't remember the BBC ever telling us that there was rationing and food buying restrictions in the Socialist paradise of Cuba, maybe it just slipped their minds.

An anniversary missed

The news that Iran has test launched some more ballistic missiles and has at least one more nuclear enrichment plant than had previously admitted reminds me that today is the anniversary (in the Jewish calendar) of the Yom Kippur war.

In 1973 on Yom Kippur (6 October that year) the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, the day when all Jews are meant to fast and spend the day in solemn repentance, Egypt and Syria opened a coordinated surprise attack against Israel. Many Israeli soldiers had gone home for the holiday and Israel was more vulnerable than normal with much of its military on leave.The equivalent of the total forces of NATO in Europe were mobilized on Israel's borders. On the Golan Heights, approximately 180 Israeli tanks faced an onslaught of 1,400 Syrian tanks. Along the Suez Canal, 436 Israeli defenders were attacked by 80,000 Egyptians. The armies of Egypt and Syria were assisted by around 18,000 Iraqi soldiers and sundry Iraqi MIG jets. 3,000 Saudi troops assisted the Syrian defence and a small number of Kuwaiti soldiers participated. Libya had been funding the Egyptian armed forces for a few years prior to the attack, allegedly to the tune of $1 billion. Other North African countries responded to Arab and Soviet calls to aid the Egypt and Syria: Algeria sent three aircraft squadrons of fighters and bombers, an armoured brigade and 150 tanks, approximately 1,000-2,000 Tunisian soldiers were positioned in the Nile Delta, Sudan stationed 3,500 troops in southern Egypt, and Morocco sent three brigades to the front lines, including 2,500 men to Syria. In addition, Lebanese radar units were used by Syrian air defence forces and the Lebanon also allowed Palestinian terrorists to shell Israeli civilian settlements from its territory. Palestinians fought on the Southern Front with the Egyptians and Kuwaitis. Even the Jordanian armed forces participated albeit reluctantly in the war on Israel. It is belived that Pakistan and Cuba sent troops to join in the destruction of the Jewish state.

The United Nations kept very quiet when the Arabs armies, supported by the Soviet Union invaded Israel. In fact the UN kept quiet right until Israel turned the war around, pushed Syria and Egypt back and had isolated the Egyptian Third Army and were in a position to advance on Damascus. Then the UN called for a ceasefire.

You may find it interesting that October 6 is a national holiday in Egypt called Armed Forces Day, it is a national holiday in Syria as well. There is also a 6th October Bridge in Cairo and the cities 6th of October City and 10th of Ramadan City.

There is not a word about the anniversary of Yom Kippur war on the BBC news website, maybe they will commemorate it with some anti-Israel articles on 6 October.

The BBC's love of a murderous dictator - Radio 4 tonight

This time not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Yasser Arafat but the real poster heroes - Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. The BBC Radio 4 programme will cover

"Cuba's unique approach to diplomacy through medical aid, its military exploits and its five decade stand-off with the United States."

I doubt that it will cover the murdering both ordered and in person by Che Guevara or the imprisoning of "social deviants" (including homosexuals and Jehovah's Witnesses) by Fidel Castro.

Harold Pinter RIH

When I heard that Harold Pinter had died my initial thought was "result" but then I felt bad for feeling that way. However I also read Samizdata's Perry de Havilland's thoughts on this matter:

"But I must say my favourite gift today was learning that Harold Pinter, a loathsome apologist for oh so many of the most vile mass murderers of modern times has finally dropped dead.

Good riddance and a pox on anyone who mourns his passing."

At least I was not alone in my feelings that the friend of people like Slobodan Milosevic was not the hero that the BBC believe he is. Although the BBC have swept away their Pinter page devoted to "Celebrating the life and works of Harold Pinter", how could they not celebrate the life a man who hated George Bush, Tony Blair and Israel whilst supporting CND and Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba.



In case you were wondering, RIH = Rest In Hell

Democracy Cuban style

The BBC breathlessly report that "Raul Castro has been unanimously selected to succeed his brother Fidel as leader by Cuba's National Assembly."

Most impressive; "unanimously selected", he must be really popular if all of the National Assembly voted for him. What an amazing democratic result.

Hold on though, what the BBC don't see fit to tell the public is that Cuba has only one legal political party - the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). At the recent elections there was a grand total of one candidate for each seat in the National Assembly, all obviously from the PCC.


The BBC proud to support Communist dictators.