Jailed American development worker Alan Gross sued the federal government and the private company that sent him to Cuba for $60 million, saying they should have done more to train and prepare him for a high-risk mission to Havana. Their suit, filed on Nov. 16 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said Maryland contractor [...]
August roundup
Cuba’s highest court upheld the conviction and 15-year jail sentence of American subcontractor Alan Gross, who was arrested in 2009 while doing U.S. government-financed democracy work in Cuba, Cuba’s state-run press reported on Aug. 5. Critics of the Castro government were outraged. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said in a statement published on Capitol Hill Cubans [...]
$600,000 in hurricane funds used for Cuba program
The U.S. Agency for International Development gave a Virginia company $600,000 in hurricane funds to help carry out a program aimed at boosting Cuba’s civil society, USASpending.gov records show. International Relief & Development, or IRD, received a total of $3,096,978 in USAID funds in 2008 and 2009, records show. USAID gave the company the $600,000 [...]