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Panama thanks Cuba for releasing 3 of its citizens as 7 others remain detained

PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) — Panama’s government said Cuba has released three of 10 of its citizens detained on the island earlier this year and accused of fabricating subversive propaganda.

The three women, who were released, have arrived in Panama, according to a government statement issued Friday.

Panama thanked Cuba for the gesture and said it would continue efforts to ensure the well-being of the seven other Panamanians who remain detained and a swift resolution to their situation.

Cuba’s Interior Ministry has said that the Panamanians who were arrested in Havana in late February were paid to enter the island “with the purpose of making signs with subversive content, contrary to the constitutional order.”

The government has asserted that those detained said they were ordered to leave Cuba “once the objective was achieved,” and that they would receive between $1,000 and $1,500 each.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
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