Tim Callaghan and Phil Gelman were both involved in relief efforts in one of the most high-profile, horrific disasters in the Western Hemisphere in the last five years: the Haiti earthquake and cholera outbreak in 2010.
A Costa Rican human rights organization founder accused The Associated Press of “misrepresenting” his group’s humanitarian work in Cuba for the United States Agency for International Development and claimed that an AP reporter “extorted” interviews from his staff and broke his agreement with a source, in a statement Monday.
The Associated Press revealed more details Monday morning about Costa Rican involvement in United States Agency for International Development’s covert anti-Cuba operations, including the use of HIV-prevention workshops as fronts for recruiting pro-democracy activists.
The daily La Nación reported on Tuesday that the U.S. Embassy in San José operated the covert program ZunZuneo behind the Costa Rican government’s back, neglecting to inform the Foreign Ministry and other government officials of the program's true intentions. U.S. Embassy officials say Costa Rica was informed.
Alan Gross, the U.S. government contractor who has been imprisoned in Cuba for more than four years, began a hunger strike last week to protest his treatment by both the Cuban and U.S. governments, his lawyer said Tuesday.
On Thursday, the United States Agency for International Development confirmed the broad outlines of an Associated Press report exposing the clandestine creation of a phony "Cuban Twitter" network that was meant to undermine the Castro government.
