Cuba Prisoner Starts Hunger Strike

Alan Gross has had enough. The U.S. government contractor, who was imprisoned in Cuba four years ago for distributing communication materials for a program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, began a hunger strike last week "to object to mistruths, deceptions, and inaction by both governments, not only regarding their shared responsibility for my arbitrary detention, but also because of the lack of any reasonable or valid effort to resolve this shameful ordeal." Gross's case came to attention again last week after the existence was revealed of another USAID program, dubbed "Cuban Twitter" and designed to push the country's youth toward anti-government dissent. Gross is serving a 15-year sentence and is said to be in poor health.