Part of Bush speech broadcast in Cuba

In an unprecedented event for Cuba's government-run media, Cuban television broadcast a long fragment of President Bush's speech about the island-without interruptions.The news program Mesa Redonda opened at 6:30 p.m. with the last 15 minutes of Bush's speech Wednesday at the State Department, taken from CNN en Español. The president's speech lasted more than 30 minutes.In the portion of the speech broadcast in Cuba, Bush speaks to those who could be listening or watching him ''with great risk'' inside the island.The broadcast took the Cuban public by surprise, among them some members of the internal opposition parties. A group of 20 dissidents had viewed the broadcast from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.''Without a doubt this is an unexpected, novel and unusual event'' said René Gomez Manzano, a dissident lawyer from Havana. ``What we always see here is the refutation . . . but not a speech made by the same people who are refuted, in their own voice.''No U.S. president is known to have been shown on Cuban television for so long and without editing since 1960.Nevertheless, Gómez Manzano said that most Cubans likely missed the broadcast because they ''had lost interest'' in the program Mesa Redonda. Unofficial estimates of its audience stand at about 3 percent.After Bush's 15 minutes, Mesa Redonda broadcast an hourlong response by Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque. He had spoken at 3:40 p.m. at the Foreign Ministry before an audience of journalists, government leaders and relatives of five Cuban spies jailed in Florida.Cuba accused Bush of inciting an internal uprising as well as treason by the military.''Cuba understands these words as an irresponsible act that gives an idea of the level of frustration, desperation and the personal hatred of President Bush against Cuba, a call to violence, a call even to the use of force to overthrow the revolution and impose his intentions,'' the foreign minister said.He added that ''the rupture of stability'' mentioned by Bush would also bring a rupture of stability for the United States, and said that if the speech's aim was to frighten the country's current leaders, his effort had been in vain.''The Word of the day in Cuba is courage,'' he said.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/284020.html

As in the days of Noah....