...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Taking a page from Hollywood science fiction, the Pentagon said Thursday it will try to shoot down a dying, bus-size U.S. spy satellite loaded with toxic fuel on a collision course with the Earth.
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The military hopes to smash the satellite as soon as next week — just before it enters Earth's atmosphere — with a single missile fired from a Navy cruiser in the northern Pacific Ocean.
The dramatic maneuver may well trigger international concerns, and U.S. officials have begun notifying other countries of the plan — stressing that it does not signal the start of a new American anti-satellite weapons program.
Military and administration officials said the satellite is carrying fuel called hydrazine that could injure or even kill people who are near it when it hits the ground. That reason alone, they said, persuaded President Bush to order the shoot-down.
"That is the only thing that breaks it out, that is worthy of taking extraordinary measures," said Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a Pentagon briefing.
He predicted a fairly high chance — as much as 80 percent — of hitting the satellite, which will be about 150 miles up when the shot is fired. The window of opportunity for taking the satellite down, Cartwright said, opens in three or four days and lasts for about seven or eight days.
"We'll take one shot and assess," he said. "This is the first time we've used a tactical missile to engage a spacecraft."
Deputy National Security Adviser James Jeffrey discounted comparisons to an anti-satellite test conducted by the Chinese last year that triggered criticism from the U.S. and other countries.
"This is all about trying to reduce the danger to human beings," Jeffrey said. "Specifically, there was enough of a risk for the president to be quite concerned about human life."
There might also be unstated military aims, some outside the administration suggested.
Similar spacecraft re-enter the atmosphere regularly and break up into pieces, said Ivan Oelrich, vice president for strategic security programs at the Federation of American Scientists. He said, "One could be forgiven for asking if this is just an excuse to test an anti-satellite weapon."
A key issue when China shot down its defunct weather satellite was that it created an enormous amount of space debris.
"All of the debris from this encounter, as carefully designed as it is, will be down at most within weeks, and most of it will be down within the first couple of orbits afterward," said Jeffrey. "There's an enormous difference to spacefaring nations in ... those two things."
He and others dismissed suggestions that this was simply an attempt by the U.S. to flex its muscles, and that officials were overstating the toxic fuel threat.
Left alone, the satellite would be expected to hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft would be expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would scatter debris over several hundred miles.
If the missile shot is successful, officials said, much of the debris would burn up as it fell. They said they could not estimate how much would make it through the atmosphere. They said the largest piece that would survive re-entry would be the spherical fuel tank, which is about 40 inches wide — assuming it is not hit directly by the missile.
The goal, however, is to hit the fuel tank in order to minimize the amount of fuel that returns to Earth, Cartwright said.
A Navy missile known as Standard Missile 3 would be fired at the spy satellite in an attempt to intercept it just before it re-enters Earth's atmosphere. It would be "next to impossible" to hit the satellite after that because of atmospheric disturbances, he said.
Known by its military designation US 193, the satellite was launched in December 2006. It lost power and its central computer failed almost immediately afterward, leaving it uncontrollable. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor.
Software associated with the Standard Missile 3 has been modified to enhance the chances of the missile's sensors recognizing that the satellite is its target. The missile's designed mission is to shoot down ballistic missiles, not satellites. Other officials said the missile's maximum range, while a classified figure, is not great enough to hit a satellite operating in normal orbits.
"It's a one-time deal," Cartwright said when asked whether the modified Standard Missile 3 should be considered a new U.S. anti-satellite technology.
He said that if an initial shoot-down attempt fails, the military would have about two days to reassess and decide whether to take a second shot.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told reporters that analysis shows the hydrazine tank would survive a fall to Earth under normal circumstances, much as one did when the Space Shuttle Columbia crashed.
"The hydrazine which is in it is frozen solid, as it is now. Not all of it will melt," he said. If the tank hits the ground it will have been breached because the fuel lines will have broken off and hydrazine will vent out, he said.
Jeffrey said members of Congress were briefed on the plan earlier Thursday and that diplomatic notifications to other countries were being made by the end of the day.
"It should be understood by all, at home and abroad, that this is an exceptional circumstance and should not be perceived as the standard U.S. policy for dealing with errant satellites," said House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton.
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...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
A gunman has opened fire on students at a university near Chicago killing five people before turning the gun on himself, police say.
The shooting took place at Northern Illinois University, in De Kalb, 65 miles (100km) west of Chicago.
Students ran for cover as a white male armed with two handguns and a shotgun opened fire in a lecture theater.
Police said he had shot himself before they arrived on the scene and that there was no apparent motive.
Two weapons have been recovered and police are searching for a third firearm in Cole Hall near the King Commons, a central gathering place for the 25,000 students on campus.
The victims, four women and a man, were killed in a "brief, rapid-fire assault", university president John Peters said.
The gunman was believed to be a former graduate student in sociology, but he was not currently enrolled at the university, Mr Peters told a news conference.
Earlier reports said 17 victims had been transported to Kishwaukee Community Hospital, several with serious head wounds.
The shooting comes 10 months after 32 students and staff were shot by a student at Virginia Tech University in one of the worst shootings ever at a US school.
It is also the fourth shooting at a US education establishment within a week.
Last Friday, a woman shot dead two fellow students before killing herself at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge. In Memphis, Tennessee, a 17-year-old is accused of shooting and critically wounding a student on Monday, and a 15-year-old was shot at a junior high school in California on Tuesday.
Terrifying
A student named John told local radio station WBBM that the gunman entered a lecture theatre and began firing a shotgun on the more than 100 students inside.
"He pointed it into the middle of the class... then he went for the teacher," John said.
George ***nor, a senior geography student, told the student newspaper that the gunman was "a skinny white guy with a stocking cap on".
He described the scene immediately following the incident as terrifying and chaotic.
"Some girl got hit in the eye, a guy got hit in the leg," he said.
The university's website first issued alerts, warning of the possibility of a gunman on campus.
"Get to a safe area and take precautions until given the all clear," it warned students.
The site then carried updates confirming the shooting and telling students to stay away or stay in doors. It then said the gunman was "no longer a threat".
Emergency hotlines and counselling are being offered for
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- God Bless America - God Bless Immigrants - God Bless Poor Misguided Souls Too Mr S.U.
Deputies suspended for dumping quadriplegic man out of chair
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Associated Press 11:49 PM EST, February 12, 2008
TAMPA - Four Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies have been suspended after purposely tipping a quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair at a jail, authorities said Tuesday.
Orient Road Jail surveillance footage from Jan. 29 shows veteran deputy Charlette Marshall-Jones, 44, dumping Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair and searching him on the floor after he was brought in on a warrant after a traffic violation.
Sterner said when he was taken into a booking room and told to stand up, Jones grew agitated when he told her that he could not.
Deputies suspended for pushing disabled man out of wheelchair Video
``She was irked that I wasn't complying to what she was telling me to do,'' he told The Tampa Tribune. ``It didn't register with her that she was asking me to do something I can't do.''
Jones has been suspended without pay, and Sgt. Gary Hinson, 51, Cpl. Steven ****ey, 45 and Cpl. Decondra Williams, 36 have also been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter said.
``The actions are indefensible at every level,'' Chief Deputy Jose Docobo said. ``Based on what I saw, anything short of dismissal would be inappropriate.''
He said the officers' actions were an aberration.
A woman who answered Jones' telephone said Jones was unavailable. A message left at a telephone number listed for a Steven ****ey in Tampa was not immediately returned Tuesday night. Listings for Hinson and Williams could not be located.
``That none of the supervisors acted upon what they saw is of great concern,'' Docobo said. ``This is not the norm at the sheriff's office.''
Sterner was arrested at his Riverview home and taken to the jail Jan. 29 on a charge of fleeing and attempting to elude a police officer, according to records. He posted $2,000 bond and was released Feb 3.
A warrant for Sterner's arrest was issued after an Oct. 25 incident, in which Tampa police stopped him in Ybor City. He was stopped while driving a Mini Cooper that had been fitted with hand pedals and was cited for blocking an intersection.
``My client was stopped that night and was given a traffic citation, so how could he be fleeing and eluding?'' Sterner's lawyer John Trevena said. ``We're very skeptical about the basis for the charge itself.''
Trevena said he hopes authorities investigate the deputies for criminal charges. He said he was ``mortified'' when he watched the footage.
``I couldn't believe that a detention deputy would be so callous toward an individual, whether they were disabled or not,'' he said.
On Sterner's MySpace page, the 32-year-old cites interests that include wheelchair rugby, yoga, art shows and documentaries.
(Comment by explora: Sorry, I didn't realize this had already been posted as I've been informed. It wasn't my intention to duplicate but since it's here I'll leave it.)
This message has been edited. Last edited by: explora,
US military judge Navy Capt. Keith Allred has ruled that lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan can send written questions to Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other alleged high-level al Qaeda detainees. Hamdan's lawyers hope that the interviewed detainees will testify that Hamdan was not involved with the USS Cole or 9/11 attacks and thus should not be charged with conspiracy, but Department of Defense prosecutors say that the charges against Hamdan do not require him to have been directly involved with those attacks.
In a motion filed last month, Hamdan's lawyers requested face-to-face interviews, but in the ruling made public Thursday, Allred limited the discovery to written questions, which must be reviewed by an independent security officer. Any answers will be censored according to national security concerns. Earlier this month, Hamdan's lawyers urged Allred to drop the charges against Hamdan. In December, Allred denied a request by Hamdan's lawyers for immediate access to top terrorism suspects, citing security concerns.
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
Bush chides House for not passing FISA bill in time to replace expiring act Eric Firkel at 3:25 PM ET
US President George W. Bush Friday chided the US House of Representatives for failing to pass the FISA Amendments Act before leaving for a 12-day recess, saying that the US would be in greater danger of an attack when the temporary Protect America Act expires on Saturday. The US Senate voted 68-29 Tuesday to pass the FISA Amendments Act, but the House failed to pass the bill this week. The version approved by the Senate provides immunity for telecommunications companies from lawsuits related to their participation in the NSA warrantless surveillance program . The House version of the legislation, approved in November, does not include the immunity provisions. Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) rejected Bush's comments Friday, saying: The President is misrepresenting the facts on our nation's electronic surveillance capabilities. Last August, he insisted that Congress pass the Protect America Act; but this week, he refused to support an extension, which can only mean he knows our intelligence agencies will be able to do all the wiretapping they need to do to protect the nation. That surveillance can be undertaken under broad orders authorized under the PAA or under orders that can be obtained through the FISA court.
The President knows the facts; if he did not want the PAA to expire this weekend, he should have supported an extension of it, as the overwhelming majority of House Democrats did on Wednesday. Having guaranteed the lapse of the August law, the President should now work in a cooperative way with Congress to pass a strong FISA modernization bill that protects our nation's security and the Constitution. The FISA Amendments Act, supplementary to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) , would make it easier for the government to monitor foreign phone calls and e-mails that pass through the United States. Strong critics of the legislation, including Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) , have deplored its retroactive grant of immunity to participating telecom companies as an effective endorsement of warrantless wiretapping contrary to the rule of law . In the absence of new legislation, the government can get an order from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor calls and e-mails, set up under FISA. Amendment supporters have rejected this option, saying it creates too much red tape.
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
Chief Guantanamo interrogator says most info not forced from detainees Eric Firkel at 11:16 AM ET
Paul Rester, chief military interrogator at Guantanamo Bay and director of the Joint Intelligence Group, said in an interview with AP published Saturday that most of the intelligence obtained from detainees at the prison has come through non-coercive questioning and "rapport building," not harsh interrogation methods like waterboarding which have featured heavily in media reports. He acknowledged that two Guantanamo detainees were given "rougher treatment": Mohammed al Qahtani , the alleged "20th hijacker" on September 11 who was intercepted by US immigration officials, and an unidentified detainee who recruited lead hijacker Mohamed Atta. Rester claimed that accounts by FBI agents and others who claim to have personally witnessed more coercive techniques of interrogation at Gitmo are not credible.
A study released Thursday by professors and students at Seton Hall University School of Law revealed that thousands of interrogations of suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were videotaped. The study cited internal US military reports saying that more than 24,000 interrogations took place at Guantanamo over a three-year period and that all detainee interviews were recorded.
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
South Korea president-elect questioned in fraud probe Devin Montgomery at 3:09 PM ET
South Korean President-elect Lee Myung-bak was questioned Sunday by a special prosecutor's team regarding his alleged involvement in a 2001 stock manipulation scheme involving a former business partner and the investment firm BBK. Lee, former mayor of Seoul, had previously been cleared of the allegations, but the Constituional Court of Korea in January allowed the appointment a special prosecutor after a video surfaced allegedly linking Lee to BBK. Lee has denied any wrongdoing and an official from the special prosecutor's office said he was cooperating with the investigation.
The 40-day window for the special investigation will expire on February 23, just two days before Lee takes office on February 25. South Korea grants immunity to sitting presidents for all criminal lawsuits outside of very serious crimes. Lee won a landslide victory [BBC report] in South Korea's presidential election in December, despite the fraud claims.
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Former first lady Nancy Reagan was hospitalized Sunday after falling in her home in Bel-Air but is doing well, her spokeswoman said.
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Reagan, 86, was taken to St. John's Health Center, where doctors determined she did not break a hip as initially feared, spokeswoman Joanne Drake said.
Drake said Reagan was doing well and would be staying the night in the same room where former President Ronald Reagan stayed after he broke his hip at home in 2001. He died June 5, 2004, after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. The two were married for 52 years.
Reagan's family physician recommended the overnight stay "as a precaution," Drake said.
"She's joking and visiting in her room," Drake said.
A message left for a hospital spokesman Sunday night was not immediately returned.
Nancy Reagan's last major public appearance was at the Jan. 30 Republican presidential debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., where she sat with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
She did not attend a 97th birthday celebration held for her late husband at the library on Feb. 6.
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France - Police raided housing projects Monday in a Paris suburb in a pre-dawn sweep aimed at finding rioters who led an outburst of violence here last year.
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More than 1,000 riot police and other officers were mobilized for the raid in Villiers-le-Bel and neighboring towns as part of the investigation into the November riots. Violence erupted in the town's housing projects, populated largely by families of immigrant background, after two teenage boys were killed in a motorbike crash with a police car.
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
ROME (Reuters) - A former Nazi guard extradited from Canada arrived in Italy on Saturday to serve a life sentence for war crimes committed there during World War Two.
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Michael Seifert, who had lived in Canada since 1951, landed at Rome's Ciampino airport before dawn on Saturday.
Italian TV footage showed the 83-year-old, wearing a baseball cap and walking slowly with the help of a cane as local police escorted him out of the airport.
An Italian military tribunal convicted Seifert in absentia in 2000 for torturing and murdering at least 18 people while serving as a guard at a prison camp in the northern city of Bolzano between December 1944 and April 1945.
A copy of the sentence, posted on the Web site of Italy's Defense Ministry, said Seifert -- known at the camp as "Misha" -- had tortured his victims with fire, broken bottles, clubs and ice-cold water.
It said Seifert in one instance raped a pregnant woman detained in an isolation cell before killing her. In a separate episode, he left a 15-year-old Jewish prisoner to die of hunger.
Seifert has acknowledged being a guard at the prison, which held Jews and political prisoners awaiting transfer to German concentration camps, but denied he had killed anyone.
Dubbed by Italian media the "Executioner of Bolzano," Seifert was turned over to Italian authorities in Toronto on Friday. After arriving in Rome, he was temporarily taken to a military prison in southern Italy.
The top military prosecutor in charge of the trial, Bartolomeo Costantini, said on Saturday Seifert was fit enough to go to jail but he would not oppose allowing him to serve the sentence under house arrest because of his age.
"He is a man who must pay for his crimes, but he will also be 84 in a few days," Costantini said, adding that he wanted to interrogate Seifert about Otto Sein, another SS guard who served at the Bolzano prison at the same time.
Seifert was born in 1924 in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, and began work as a guard in the Nazi SD security service after the German occupation. He was a member of the SS by the time he served at the Bolzano camp, court documents said.
He moved to Canada after the war, claiming to be from Estonia, and found employment as a mill worker in Vancouver, where he raised a family and lived until he was arrested at Italy's request in 2002.
Seifert fought his extradition in Canadian courts, but the Supreme Court of Canada refused last month to hear his appeal.
Seifert's lawyers had argued he had been convicted unfairly in Italy and that Canadian officials were biased against him in allowing the extradition.
The Canadian Jewish Congress said on Friday the extradition showed Canada was not a safe hiding place for people wanted for war crimes. The group estimates 1,000 to 3,000 people with Nazi pasts were able to get into Canada illegally between 1947 and 1956.
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
OHSWEKEN, Ontario (Reuters) - In a grey, shed-like building on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in southern Ontario, Esenogwas Jacobs is getting her kindergarten students ready to head home for the day.
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"Gao dehswe," Jacobs says, calling her students to the door.
"Gyahde:dih," she adds, it's time to go.
Her students answer with assertive "ehes."
No one speaks a word of English.
"I just use Cayuga with them," Jacobs said. "Mostly they can respond back in Cayuga, so it's pretty cool."
The eight children of this kindergarten class carry on their shoulders the hopes for preserving the language of the Cayugas, one of the six nations that make up the Iroquois Confederacy of southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States.
Since the 19th Century and until recently, Canada has pushed for the assimilation of its native population, sending aboriginal children to boarding schools where they were taught the language, culture and spirituality of Canadian society.
While the effort to assimilate aboriginal people into Canadian culture failed, the schools, the last of which closed in 1996, were effective at stunting aboriginal languages.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised to set up a commission to look into the schools, which could lead to a statement of apology similar to one issued by Australia to its aboriginal people this week.
Less than a quarter of aboriginal people in Canada use their ancestral tongue, the government says. The number of fluent Cayuga speakers has dropped from 376 in the 1970s to only 79 today.
"The number of speakers, they're dying off all the time, like every year," said Elva Jamieson, who learned the language as a child from her family, but wasn't allowed to speak it at school. "It gets lonely when you don't have someone to talk to."
Jamieson is a teacher at the Gaweni:yo High School, part of the same Cayuga language immersion program that also includes Jacobs' kindergarten class, as well as a parallel Mohawk language program.
"I think the language speaks to their spirit," Jamieson said of the 35 pupils at the high school, located about 70 miles (120 km) southwest of the Ontario capital Toronto. "They're able to grasp it and go with it."
While the linguistic knowledge of native speakers like Jamieson is irreplaceable, Gaweni:yo -- which means "nice-sounding words" -- is helping to slow the erosion of the Cayuga language, and young people are becoming a viable population of fluent speakers.
The most dedicated meet up regularly to chat in Cayuga and practice new words and some even use Cayuga as the primary language at home.
Jacobs, 24, herself a graduate of Gaweni:yo, tries to speak only Cayuga with her boyfriend, another graduate, and she spends evenings visiting with elders to learn new words.
The program has been running since 1986, but this is the first year that it has included a kindergarten class. Many of her young students are the children of fellow Gaweni:yo graduates and Jacobs encourages them to use Cayuga at home, too.
While the dominant language on the reserve is still English, Jacobs is happy with the progress. The language is going through a rebirth, she said. "It feels good knowing these kids are coming up."
LANGUAGE LOST
Not far from Jacobs' kindergarten, a group of adults are also studying Cayuga in a crowded community centre classroom. One of them is Oklahoman Sally White, a descendant of the Seneca-Cayuga - a tribe that separated from the Cayuga of Six Nations in the 18th century.
The Seneca-Cayuga spoke a similar dialect, but their language has now been declared extinct, which means a man from Six Nations must go to Oklahoma each year to perform their traditional ceremonies.
"Without him, I don't think we would have (our ceremonies)," said White, who hopes to learn enough Cayuga to teach the basics to her husband and other members of their community. "It's just about gone. We're losing a lot."
But saving dying languages costs money and for many Canadians the price of immersion programs such as the one at Six Nations may be too steep.
Canada's Conservative government, elected two years ago, has cut a 10-year, C$173 million ($173 million) language revitalization program, leaving the immersion programs at Six Nations dangling by a thread. School officials do not know if there will be funding to continue past the current year.
The death of the language would be a tragedy, according to linguist Marianne Mithun, who spent 10 years studying the decline of the Cayuga language at Six Nations.
"The loss of language is a devastating loss of identity," said Mithun, a University of California Santa Barbara linguist who specializes in aboriginal languages in North America. "It is the disappearance of their heritage, a blacking out of their intellectual and cultural history."
While Cayuga still has enough mother-tongue speakers to document how the language should be spoken, a process that is taking place on Six Nations through video and audio archives, Mithun worries that once all the elders die, the living language will only be a pale shadow of what it once was.
"When you get to see a language like Cayuga, you just see other ways of looking at the world," said Mithun, commenting on the language's literal nature. "If we care about understanding the human mind, then we're really missing the boat if we let these languages slip
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
Bush: Cuba should see start of 'democratic transition'
KIGALI, Rwanda (CNN) -- Cuban leader Fidel Castro's decision to step down should spark "a democratic transition" for the communist island nation, President Bush said Tuesday.
"The international community should work with the Cuban people to begin to build institutions that are necessary for democracy and eventually this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections," Bush said at a news conference in Rwanda during his five-nation tour of Africa.
"I believe that the change from Fidel Castro ought to begin ... a democratic transition."
Bush added, "The United States will help the people of Cuba realize the blessings of liberty."
Castro announced his resignation Tuesday as president of Cuba and commander in chief of Cuba's military, according to a letter published in Cuba's state-run newspaper, Granma.
The United States and Cuba, which have no formal diplomatic relations, have been at odds for decades, but tensions between the two countries have increased in past two years.
The Bush administration has tightened the four-decades-old U.S. embargo on the island, increased Radio Marti news broadcasts into Cuba, curtailed visits home by Cuban-Americans and limited the amount of money Cuban-Americans can send to relatives.
The United States also has been working on plans for a post-Castro Cuba.
A 2006 report by interagency group the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba laid out the framework for Washington's possible response in the event of Castro's incapacitation or death.
The U.S. response could include tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian and economic aid but might also be dependent on a transitional government that's committed to democracy.
Castro transferred many powers to his brother Raúl after receiving treatment for intestinal problems in 2006. Raúl Castro is considered more pragmatic than his older brother but hasn't shown any inclination to invite the United States to launch a full-scale democratic push and overhaul of the country's institutions.
Bush created the commission in 2003 to "help hasten and ease Cuba's democratic transition," according to the group's Web site.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is the commission's chair, and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban-American, is the co-chair.
"The work of the commission will ensure that the U.S. government is fully prepared, if asked, to assist a genuine Cuban transition government committed to democracy and which will lead to Cuba's reintegration into the inter-American system," a statement on the site says.
But at least one activist in Miami, Florida, said Castro's resignation does not mean Cuba is any closer to democracy.
"It doesn't mean any change to the system. It doesn't mean there will be freedom for the Cubans. One big dictator is replacing the other," said Janisset Rivero, executive director of Cuban Democratic Directorate, which works with dissidents in Cuba.
"It will be big deal when political prisoners are released, when political parties are allowed to organize, when the country stops being ruled by a single party," Rivero told CNN on Tuesday. Watch what Castro's resignation means for Cuba »
The commission report calls on the United States "to put in place preparations that will ensure that the U.S. will be in a position to provide technical assistance in the first two weeks after a determination that a Cuban transition is under way."
Such aid would include legal experts to help with elections. Training judges and police would be essenti
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