THE WASHINGTON POST

EDITORIAL | A Chance for Honduras

The best way to defeat deposed president Manuel Zelaya lies in allowing his return. 1247140313

COLOMBIA

Trade deal would reduce drug flow

During the Colombia Free Trade Agreement discussions in the White House and Congress, a major point has been missed. Colombia is the No. 1 source of drugs that lead to murders, crowding in prisons and family disunion. Congressional ratification of the Colombia Free Trade agreement will help Colombia create jobs outside of the drug trade and reduce the export of these lethal products.

CUBA

Cuban regime fears silent majority

On June 24, five Cuban dissidents received the annual Democracy Award given by the National Endowment for Democracy. José Daniel Ferrer, Iván Hernández and Librado Linares are serving long prison terms for their peaceful opposition. Imprisoned for 17 years, Jorge Luis García, known as Antúnez, was released in 2007. He and wife Iris Tamara Pérez, a fellow awardee, are under virtual house arrest.

BLOOMBERG

Cuba keeps ill writer jailed as Norway awards prize

A few weeks ago, Normando Hernandez Gonzalez got the kind of news that usually prompts cheers and emotion-filled toasts. The Cuban journalist and poet had been awarded the annual Freedom of Expression award by the Norwegian Writers’ Union. A delegation traveled from Oslo to the island nation to present the award, which included a prize of 100,000 kroner (about $15,775).

HONDURAS

What's the chance of stability?

The United States, the OAS, the European Union, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro -- most of all, Chávez and Castro -- want Manuel Zelaya immediately restored to the presidency of Honduras. He was expelled from the country on the morning of June 28.

A new approach to Cuba

The Obama administration has made an excellent first step to eliminate some restrictions on travel to the island, to loosen constraints on remittances and to re-engage in migration talks. Positive, multiple lines of engagement are clearly the way forward. Broader contact and leverage with Cuba through additional commercial and people-to-people contacts will in time help promote a more pluralistic, less impoverished, and more open society.

NEWSWEEK

The Havana obsession; Why all eyes are on a bankrupt island

Bill Clinton and George W. Bush recently had a face-to-face debate in Canada to discuss current affairs. The only Latin American nation mentioned in their conversation? Cuba.

AKRON BEACON JOURNAL

Obama has many options to change course on Cuba

The Obama administration has made an excellent first step to eliminate some restrictions on travel to Cuba, to loosen constraints on remittances, and to re-engage in migration talks. Positive, multiple lines of engagement are clearly the way forward. Broader contact and leverage with Cuba through additional commercial and people-to-people contacts will in time help promote a more pluralistic, less impoverished, and more open society.

KENDALL AND GWENDOLYN MYERS

Why did they spy for Cuba?

Why would someone betray his country? More specifically, why would an American citizen from a distinguished family with a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins and a long and seemingly successful career in academia and the State Department agree to spy for Castro's Cuba? That's the question I've been wondering about since Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and his wife, Gwen, 71, were arrested and accused of spying for the Castro regime for nearly three decades.

U.S. POLICY

Don't reward Castro for Cuba's bad behavior

Speaking recently in France about the North Korean nuclear crisis, President Barack Obama faced up to the futility and danger of extending the hand of U.S. friendship toward countries whose fists stay clinched. ''I do not intend to continue a policy of rewarding provocation,'' he vowed.

COHA

Commentary: Cuban oil: Havana's potential geo-political bombshell

As the Obama administration slowly inches towards normalizing its relations with Cuba, pressure is mounting on the new president to lift the decades-old, and universally acknowledged, anachronistic embargo

INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY

Hugo Chavez's war on free trade in Peru

What does Venezuela's Hugo Chavez call a nation that develops peacefully, embraces markets, promotes property rights, pursues free trade and has no use for his revolution? A target. Welcome to Peru.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD

Dictatorships and Double Standards

In all my years as an observer of international affairs, I have seldom seen the Organization of American States (OAS) so energized by a single issue. If only that issue were the humanitarian tragedy of Haiti, or the defense of democracy in those member countries where it is under siege--such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia.

WALL STREET JOURNAL

Latin America's Brave New World

In a post-bubble world that vilifies the private sector and elevates government as humanity's best hope, two events in Latin America last week deserve attention. The first was a meeting of the Organization of American States in Honduras. The OAS voted to lift the 1962 ban on Cuba's membership. The second was the 25th anniversary celebration of the Venezuelan, pro-liberty think-tank Cedice Libertad in Caracas.

OAS

Socialism wears poncho this time

It is reasonable for the countries in the Americas to have a diplomatic venue where they can meet to examine their common affairs. That, apparently, is the Organization of American States, which was born in 1948 as a Cold War defense mechanism.

BOSTON GLOBE

Editorial: Bringing Cuba in from the cold

THE INVITATION to membership extended to Cuba Wednesday by the Organization of American States was long overdue. The United States' effort to continue Cuba's exclusion from the OAS was at best a historical anomaly, at worst a blunder that isolated not Cuba but the United States.

Agents' stories have intrigue of spy novels

Cuban agent 202 was an American university professor who moved from South Dakota to Washington, D.C. -- at the behest of the Castro government -- to score a job with top-secret security clearance at the State Department.

Door is open, but will Cuba walk through?

OUR OPINION: If Cuba fails to accept democracy, it does not belong in the OAS

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Editorial: Obama, Cuba and the OAS

For 50 years, the Cuban people have suffered under Fidel Castro’s, and now Raúl Castro’s, repressive rule. But Washington’s embargo — a cold war anachronism kept alive by Florida politics — has not lessened that suffering and has given the Castros a far-too-convenient excuse to maintain their iron grip on power.