On January 8, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lands in Venezuela to start a brief but highly symbolic Latin American visit. The Iranian leader aims to bolster ties with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and some of the region’s most strident anti-American leaders. For the Obama Administration, the Iranian visit reflects a continuing… Read more
Heritage hosted House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) to discuss President Obama's performance on matters beyond U.S. borders. We spoke to her about the Obama Doctrine, her concerns about U.S. policy toward Cuba and Israel, and why she is trying to reform the United Nations. Read more… Read more
Last week, just outside Cuba’s holiest Catholic shrine, government thugs attacked in plain daylight a group of opposition women -- beating them, stoning them and stripping them naked to the waist. The women, mostly black and middle-aged, suffered this public humiliation because they were trying to find a dignified way… Read more
Between March 19 and 23, President Obama will embark on a rapid visit to Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador. This is his first visit to South or Central America as President. Despite considerable fanfare, the trip comes at an awkward time, when global attention is riveted on the tragedy in… Read more
As Muammar al-Qaddafi clings to power by ordering his troops to shoot on their Libyan compatriots, across the globe in the Caribbean one of his last remaining global buddies is doing his best to keep the lid on his own victims. Fidel Castro, presiding over the wreckage of what was… Read more
When i was a child and the communist authorities would send a volunteer worker to inquire why I had not yet joined the Pioneros or generally was not going along with the rhetoric of the Cuban Revolution, my grandmother would react in a way I found puzzling. She would show the… Read more
It was a strange way to kick off the Martin Luther King weekend. But last Friday night, President Obama slapped hundreds of Cuba’s political prisoners’ right in the face. That’s when the administration announced it will make it easier for Americans who support Castro’s government… Read more
Abstract: Since World War II, U.S. international broadcasting has been a major tool for breaking information barriers and blockades constructed by totalitarian and similarly closed authoritarian regimes. Today, the United States continues to open new doors to individual and media freedom, and to advance… Read more
If something isn't done to prevent it, we'll likely be facing an emerging nuclear threat from President Hugo Chavez's Venezuela sometime in the next 10 years. … Read more
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg recently went to Cuba at the bidding of that island’s dictator. The results weren’t pretty. The tone of the first two articles by our man in Havana makes clear that he was intent on presenting Fidel Castro as a charming old… Read more
This month, several individuals detained as "enemy combatants" will make their appeals for freedom to the highest court in the land. Perhaps now, more than any other time in recent memory, the eyes of the world are intensely focused… Read more
Introduction With the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been a growing chorus of cries for the United States to lift the economic embargo on Cuba. This chorus has included even such responsible anti-communist voices as those of former President… Read more
Abstract: The U.S. officially designates four countries as state sponsors of terrorism--Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Sudan. It is high time to add Venezuela to the list. Far from being merely a populist showman and bully, Hugo Chávez is a reckless leader who collaborates with Colombian narcoterrorists and Islamist terrorists, pals… Read more
Cuban political prisoner Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet, Generation Y blogger Yoani Sanchez, and dissident and former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" are scarcely names familiar to ordinary Americans -- but they should be. After all, they are just three of the growing number of Cuban men and women with… Read more
WASHINGTON, JAN. 20, 2010--The 29 economies in the South and Central America/Caribbean region performed better than the world average in four of the 10 components of economic freedom measured in the 2010 "Index of Economic Freedom," published annually by… Read more
America’s response thus far to the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12 has been far too mute, creating an unexpected vacuum of leadership in a critical region. Haiti is the most impoverished nation of the Americas. The government under President Réne Préval is weak and literally now in… Read more
Since June 28--when the Honduran military placed Manuel Zelaya on an aircraft bound for San Jose, Costa Rica--massive media coverage, diplomatic maneuvering, and political theater have accompanied efforts to restore Zelaya to the presidency of his Central American nation. In the aftermath of his exile, Manuel Zelaya's shift from the political center toward both foreign… Read more
On June 3, as many recalled the 20th anniversary of China's crushing of a fragile democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, 34 hemispheric leaders convened in Honduras for the annual gathering of the Organization of American States (OAS). There they repealed a 1962 resolution that suspended communist Cuba from membership. The repeal reportedly… Read more
Recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton specified the three guiding "D's" of U.S. foreign policy: defense, development, and diplomacy. When she heads south for the inauguration of El Salvador's new president and the May 31-June 2 annual high-level meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS),… Read more
They call themselves “las Damas de Blanco” (“the Ladies in White”). They are a prominent group of courageous Cuban...… Read more
[caption id="attachment_86950" align="alignnone" width="550" caption="A picture of former Czech president Vaclav Havel...… Read more
On learning of the death of Kim Jong-il, Cuban authorities immediately declared three days of official mourning. Their...… Read more
In this week's Heritage in Focus, expert Ray Walser discusses the increasingly anti-U.S. policies in Latin...… Read more
Since the U.S. first enacted sanctions against Cuba in 1962, the island nation has been dependent on allies for...… Read more
In recent weeks, representatives of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have complained of America’s “Cold War...… Read more
On December 3, 2009, American citizen and contractor for the United States Agency for International Development Alan...… Read more
Foreign policy takes center stage in Washington this week as eight Republican presidential candidates gather tomorrow...… Read more
Twenty years ago, the world watched the Soviet Union fall. The regime that was "planted by bayonets," as President...… Read more
Cuba—to listen to, watch or read some of the media—is a place that has remained unbowed in the face of impoverishment by...… Read more