Page 5 - Inside Cuba News Today

Choreographed. obviously kept under tight wraps for a long time. but it looks like this was something that was in the works for at least weeks, if not months. >> reporter: wolf, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on a background call within the last hour, this has been going on since june of 2013. and to put all this in perspective, youll recall when the president went to nelson mandelas memorial service last september and he had that handshake with raul castro, ...

Released this photo, showing president obama talking on the phone yesterday with cuban president raul castro. it was the first direct communication between a u.s. and cuban leader since 1961. today president obama addressed critics of the agreement. >> to those who oppose the steps im announcing today, let me say that i respect your passion and share your commitment to liberty and democracy. the question is, how we uphold that commitment. i do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for ove...

Letter to both president obama and raul castro asking them to put aside their differences, deal with this prisoner exchange and then move the relations between their two peoples forward. apparently thats what both president obama and president castro have done. theyve responded to that call from many world leaders but in particular pope francis to let bygones be bygones and find a new path for cuban/u.s. relations. >> a dramatic new path. patrick oppmann joining us from havana. stand by. ill com...

Will have a platform to argue for american beliefs, that the castro regime has a poor human rights record. that it is opposed to freedom for the cuban people and we ought to be pushing that view from inside cuba. not from outside. so i applaud the president. it is a courageous move. weve sustain pushback from a number of his critics, especially in the republican party. i think the president can handle that criticism but a very courageous decision by president obama. >> you recently traveled to h...

>> [ inaudible question ]. >> there you have it, senator marco rubio condemning this decision by president obama today, condemning the decision to go ahead and improve u.s./cuban relations, the most dramatic improvement in some 50 years, going back to the cuban revolution in 1961, the president of the united states and the president of cuba simultaneously speaking to the american people on president obamas part, the cuban people on president raul castros part saying there will be a full diplomat...

Havana and high-ranking officials will visit cuba. where we can advance shared interests, we will on issues like health, migration, counterterrorism, drug trafficking and disaster response. indeed weve seen the benefits of cooperation between our countries before. it was a cuban, carlos finley, who discovered that mosquitos carry yellow fever. his work helped walter reed fight it. cuba has sent hundreds of health care workers to africa to fight ebola. and i believe american and cuban health care...

Against cuban relations and against fidel. and over the years that number has been decreasing. we see third, fourth generation cuban americans saying, you know what? fidel is not that big a deal in our lives. we want to focus more about how we can help cubans who are over there right now. so strategically, it does not hurt the democrats. and even republicans, with the exception of say, marco rubio, are the ones saying, no big deal. it is good for business. lets go forward with it. >> you know, i...

>> in the most significant changes in our policy in more than 50 years, we will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries. through these changes, we intend to create more opportunities for the american and cuban people and begin a new chapter among the nations of the americas. theres a complicated history between the united states and cuba. i was born in 1961, just over two years after ...

>> reporter: we dont know. but he will be coming to the u.s. hes certainly not going to stay in cuba. the director of national intelligence is saying this person provided critical assistance to the u.s. and then you have that list of all the spies working for cuba that he, this intel asset, helped identify during the course of his work for u.s. intelligence. >> jim sciutto, stand by. elise labott, our global affairs correspondent, you have more information on this american spy 20 years in a cuba...

Its own ability to sustain corporations and multilateral organisms such as the united nations. as we recognize the profound differences, especially in national sovereignty, democracy, human rights and foreign relations policies, we reserve our willingness to dialogue in all of these areas. >> the cuban president, raul castro, making the announcement to the cuban people that there will be a normalization of the relationship between the united states and cuba. speaking exactly at the same time as ...