This is the New World Report, I'm John Bashler, and I continue my conversation with Professor

Evan Ellis of the U.S. Army War College, as we attend especially to the G-77 meeting

just concluded in Havana, Cuba.

There were many ironic remarks, however, there are also geopolitical maneuvers going on

that are significant for the hemisphere for the last over 50 to 100 years, and this one

strikes me as especially useful for a conversation going forward about Cuba.

You will recall that the U.S. and Cuba have been at odds since Fidel Castro's time,

the late 1950s, and the Soviet states.

In Castro, as an ally, as a supplicant, and certainly the trouble of the Cuban invasion,

the Cuban Missile Crisis, all of that is part of the 20th century lore of the Cold War,

but here we are in the 21st century.

Castro's brothers are gone from leadership, and a man named Diaz Canal, Miguel Diaz Canal

is the president.

The Cuban regime is brutal.

It jails at torments, it pursues, it drives out people who descend.

At the same time, Cuba is part of the hemisphere that needs development, so there are ironies

here, and I note that the president of Brazil, Lula de Silva, a very powerful voice in the

Americas and worldwide.

This is a report from president, Lula de Silva, who attended the G77 meeting in Havana

on his way to New York.

Brazil's president calls U.S. economic embargo on Cuba illegal, and it condemns the terrorist

list label.

...