A robot would be better in the White House than Obama, GOP candidates — Fidel Castro
Tuesday, January 10, 2012

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) — Cuban revolutionary icon Fidel Castro said yesterday that a “robot” would be better in the White House than President Barack Obama — or any of the Republican candidates in the 2012 election race.
“Is it not obvious that the worst of all is the absence in the White House of a robot capable of governing the United States and preventing a war that would end the life of our species?” Castro, 85, wrote in one of the “reflections” he often publishes in Cuba’s state-controlled media.
CASTRO… worse still, any of the Republican candidates for the presidency… carry with them more nuclear weapons than ideas for peace
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Under the title The Best President for the United States, Cuba’s ex-president said that if faced with a choice between Obama, a Republican rival or a robot, “90 per cent of voting Americans, especially Hispanics, blacks and the growing number of the impoverished middle class, would vote for the robot.”
Obama, Castro said, is “hopelessly immersed in seeking re-election,” and “the dreams of (civil rights icon) Martin Luther King are thousands of light years further away than the nearest inhabitable planet.”
“Worse still, any of the Republican candidates for the presidency… carry with them more nuclear weapons than ideas for peace,” said Castro, alluding to several of the would-be Obama challengers who have called, in particular, for a stronger position against Iran, which the West says is seeking to build an atomic bomb.
Fidel, who handed the reins of power to his younger brother Raul in 2006, has rarely held back in his disdain for Obama.
In September he slammed Obama’s address to the UN General Assembly as “gibberish” and called the US and NATO intervention in Libya “monstrous crimes.”

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Plans for a business wedding over the Christmas holidays turned out to be a hoax after a 39-year-old woman reported that she paid $200,000 to an American man and he failed to turn up on the wedding day to marry her.

The case was thrown out in court last week as the Resident Magistrate felt that the prosecution did not have a criminal case against the accused.

The accused man who was charged with fraudulent conversion is from a Queens, New York, address.

The court heard that the money that was paid over to him was alleged to be the first of several payments for the business marriage.

business wedding
It is reported that the accused had requested US$10,000 to do the business wedding.

Allegations are that on December 5, the accused who is an American citizen took the money from the complainant in an agreement to marry her on December 21.

It is alleged that the accused made promises to assist the complainant with getting her an American green card.

The court heard that on the day of the wedding, the accused told the complainant that he was advised by an immigration attorney not to marry due to immigration concerns.

The matter was reported to the police after the accused failed to refund the complainant’s money.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s government allowed a group of undercover U.S. anti-drug agents and their Colombian informant to launder millions in cash for a powerful Mexican drug trafficker and his Colombian cocaine supplier, according to documents made public Monday.

The Mexican magazine Emeequis published portions of documents that describe how Drug Enforcement Administration agents, a Colombian trafficker-turned-informant and Mexican federal police officers in 2007 infiltrated the Beltran Leyva drug cartel and a cell of money launderers for Colombia’s Valle del Norte cartel in Mexico.

The group of officials conducted at least 15 wire transfers to banks in the United States, Canada and China and smuggled and laundered about $2.5 million in the United States. They lost track of much of that money.

In his testimony, the DEA agent in charge of the operation says DEA agents posing as pilots flew at least one shipment of cocaine from Ecuador to Madrid through a Dallas airport.

The documents are part of an extradition order against Harold Mauricio Poveda-Ortega, a Colombian arrested in Mexico in 2010 on charges of supplying cocaine to Arturo Beltran Leyva. A year earlier, Beltran Leyva was killed in a shootout with Mexican marines in the city of Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City.

The documents show Mexico approved Poveda-Ortega’s extradition to the United States in May, but neither Mexican nor U.S. authorities would confirm whether he has been extradited. Mexican authorities listed his first name as “Haroldo.”

In a statement issued late Monday, Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office said it cooperates with the United States in combatting money laundering and said the Poveda-Ortega case, like others of its kind, “are carried out strictly within the legal framework.”

While the statement said that “coordinated money laundering investigations are carried out exclusively by Mexican authorities,” it also noted that “sometimes, these investigations require specialized techniques to detect money laundering, which each agency carries out within its own jurisdiction.”

U.S. officials did not respond to requests for comment.

The documents offer rare glimpses into the way U.S. anti-drug agents are operating in Mexico, an often sensitive subject in a country touchy about national sovereignty.

On one occasion, the informant who began working for the DEA in 2003 after a drug arrest met with the girlfriend of a Colombian drug trafficker in Dallas and offered to move cocaine for their group around the world for $1,000 per kilo. In a follow-up meeting, the informant introduced the woman to a DEA agent posing as a pilot. The woman is identified as the girlfriend of Horley Rengifo Pareja, who was detained in 2007 accused of laundering money and drug trafficking.

Another scene described the informant negotiating a deal to move a cocaine shipment from Ecuador to Spain and minutes later being taken to a house where he met with Arturo Beltran Leyva.

Beltran Leyva was once a top lieutenant for the Sinaloa drug cartel, led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. But he split from the cartel shortly after his brother was arrested in 2008, setting off a bloody battle between the former allies.

Fractured cartels have led to an increase of drug violence in Mexico. According to several counts more than 45,000 people have been killed since late 2006, though the government stopped giving figures on drug war dead when the toll hit nearly 35,000 a year ago.

On Monday, police in western Mexico found the bodies of 13 men at a gas station in the state of Michoacan.

The bodies were dumped near a convenience store on the gas station lot in the town of Zitacuaro, said Michoacan state prosecutors spokesman Jonathan Arredondo.

Arredondo said threatening messages were found with the bodies, but he wouldn’t comment on their content or give any other details.

However, the federal Interior Department later said a total of 15 bodies had been found in Zitacuaro. The statement did not specify whether all were found at the gas station.

Also Monday, the Michoacan state prosecutors office reported three high school students were shot to death by assailants who opened fire from a passing vehicle while the youths were relaxing in a park in the town of Yurecuaro, near the border with the neighboring state of Jalisco.

There was no evident motive in the attack.

The western state of Michoacan is home base to The Knights Templar cartel, which like its predecessor, La Familia, is a pseudo-religious gang specializing in methamphetamine production, drug smuggling, extortion and other crimes.

UNITED States President Barack Obama has phoned Jamaica’s new prime minister to congratulate her on leading her party back to power.

A White House statement issued today says Obama and Portia Simpson Miller discussed their responsibility for boosting the security of citizens and the importance of economic growth in improving Jamaicans’ lives.

The statement also says Obama looks forward to working with Simpson Miller at an upcoming regional summit in Colombia.

The 66-year-old Simpson Miller was sworn in last week after her opposition People’s National Party captured 42 seats in Jamaica’s 63-seat legislature.

She became Jamaica’s first female leader during her year-and-a-half-long first stint in office that ended in 2007.

SOURCE: AP