Cuba criticise US ‘subversive plans’

Cuba has vented fury over the US government’s secretly-funded social media network program meant to instigate political unrest in the Caribbean country, a report said. According to an investigation by the Associated Press, the administration of US President Barack Obama has been secretly financing the project, dubbed “Cuban Twitter” for more than two years to undermine the Cuban government, press tv reported. The Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the story “once again demonstrated that the government of the United States has not given up on its subversive plans against Cuba, which seek to create destabilizing situations in the country in order to provoke changes in our political order, to which the government of the United States continues to dedicate budgets of millions of dollars every year”. Citing international law and the United Nations Charter, Cuba called on the United States to “cease its illegal and covert actions against Cuba, which are rejected by the Cuban people and the international public opinion”. The program has reportedly been able to evade Cuba’s Internet restrictions by creating a text-messaging service that could be used to organize political demonstrations. The service drew in tens of thousands of subscribers who were unaware of Washington’s scheme. On Thursday, US Department of State Spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters that the program was neither “secret” nor “covert” under the US government’s definitions of those terms, calling it a “democracy promotion” program created as a platform “similar to Twitter”.