Revolutions tend to occur in waves, triggered by the aftermath of wars, like the world wars, or by revolutions in leading countries, like the French Revolution and the revolutions of 1848. In the last generation, there have been four regional waves of revolution. With the end of the Cold War, communist regimes were swept from power from Eastern Europe to Central Asia, surviving only in a few countries including China, North Korea and Cuba. Unable to justify themselves with the pretense of fighting communism, military dictatorships were swept away in Latin America. Then the Arab Spring triggered a wave of populist if not necessarily democratic revolutions against autocracies in North Africa and the Middle East.

Are we seeing a new wave of revolutionary politics in the heartland of the industrial West? Although governments are not being violently overthrown in Europe, political systems are being destabilized by the rise of anti-system movements opposed to the major establishment parties. In Greece, the leftist Syriza party and the far-right Golden Dawn have sapped power from the political center. The most recent Italian election was dominated by anti-system candidates, including Silvio Berlusconi and the comedian Beppe Grillo.

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New America Media: Why did you call your memoir "The General"?

Ahmed Rachidi: Because I was one of a limited number of prisoners at Guantanamo who spoke English, I was often forced to be an "unofficial leader" by guards and interrogators. They nicknamed me "the general."

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These questions are timely, following Vice President Joe Biden’s dismissive description of the Boston Marathon bombers as “knockoff jihadis.” Mere amateurs, these brothers, who were capable of murdering several marathon participants, maiming scores more and shutting down a major city and even rail lines for hours or days. The real amateurism, it might be suggested, is that of the pundits and journalists trying to psychoanalyze the Tsarnaev brothers and their relations from a distance.

But there are already reports that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving killer, has said that he and his brother acted in response to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — wars that they considered to be attacks on Islam. What if this really was the motive? What if these brothers really were sincere Islamist revolutionaries, like the thousands of others who have rallied to militant jihadism in the past several decades, whether they were connected to international Islamist networks or acting on their own? That doesn’t exonerate their brutal crimes in any way. But surely Islamist terrorists are best understood in terms of the common Islamist ideology they share, rather than personal or familial experiences that are unique to each.

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Pitbull, born to Cuban parents, departed from his usual dance music to rap a politically charged message, saying, "It's the freedom that we ride for/ It's the freedom that we die for/ C-U-B-A/ Hope to see you free one day," he raps of the communist country.

Pitbull ends his rap with a message of support to Jay-Z, whose trip, though licensed by the U.S. Treasury, caused uproar among members of the GOP: "Question of the night, would they have mess with Mr. Carter if he was white?/Hm, rhyme with treasury/When way another in Cuba is where they'll bury me/Happy 5th year anniversary, Jay and B don't worry it's on me"

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Now, another potential instance of compromised confidentiality at the military commissions has emerged: Defense attorneys say somebody has accessed their email and servers.

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On Cuba:

Politicians never did shit for me/ Except lie to me, distort history/ They wanna give me jail time and a fine-- Fine, let me commit a real crime/ Obama said, "Chill, you're going to get me impeached"/ You don't need this shit anyway, chill with me on the beach

On the Nets:

I woulda moved the Nets to Brooklyn for free/ Except I made millions off you fucking dweebs/ I still own the building, I'm keeping my seats/ You buy that bullshit, you better keep your receipts

"Open Letter" is produced by Swizz Beatz and Timbaland. Listen to it below:

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Prompted by inquiries into the trip from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, sources have come forward to say that the US Treasury sanctioned the visit. From the Guardian:

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Two congressmen from Florida, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, have raised this point in a letter to the Office of Foreign Assets Control, demanding to know the exact purpose of the celebrities' trip and how it was approved. The letter notes that under U.S. law "the licensing of financial transactions for 'tourist activities' in Cuba" are prohibited by law." According to OFAC, notes the letter, only Americans with a "full-time schedule of educational exchange activities that will result in meaningful interaction between the travelers and individuals in Cuba" are allowed to visit. "These restrictions are in place because the Cuban dictatorship is one of four U.S.-designated state sponsors of terrorism with one of the world’s most egregious human rights records," write Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart.

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To begin with, any time you fly anywhere for the fun of it, the resultant carbon spillage pollutes your friendship with the environment. As somebody who has been writing about travel for most of the last 20 years, I’m more guilty in this area than most. And the idea of buying offsets doesn't make me feel any less responsible. Instead, I tell myself that by traveling we widen our minds, and as Americans abroad, we might be helping spread wealth and perhaps bringing home a lesson or two.

But that means paying attention when you plan a trip, and understanding where your money is going, what the local labor laws are, and how American tourism dollars might do some good. Some trips make me feel less guilty than others, and that's usually because I've done some easy homework before leaving home.

Let's start right here: If you’re sleeping in a hotel, any hotel, and not tipping the maid $2 a night or more, you’re not entitled to complain about anybody’s exploitation of anybody anywhere. Wherever you are in the world, Detroit to Djibouti, you can be sure that generously tipping the maid is going to help the working poor get richer. There are no political complications, no middle man, just you, your wallet, the top of the dresser, and the person who will be dusting that dresser-top in an hour or two.

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The 52-year-old Diaz-Canel is now the first in line to succeed Castro. He is the highest-ranking Cuban official who didn't directly participate in the 1959 Cuban revolution.

The selections were reported by state media Sunday.

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CARACAS, Venezuela — It's been two days since President Hugo Chavez’s return to Venezuela from cancer treatment in Havana and the crowds have dispersed from the capital's military hospital.

In this rough neighborhood, vendors sell freshly-squeezed orange juice and empanadas to passersby just like every other day, while visible security at the medical complex is only slightly tighter.

After more than two months of silence from Chavez since his operation and resulting complications, this is not the triumphant homecoming Venezuelans are used to from their histrionic leader.

In July 2011, on returning after a similar three-week absence for cancer treatment, Chavez stood at the balcony of his Miraflores presidential palace, clad in his olive green army uniform and red beret, and silently lapped up the applause for a full five minutes.

"It's a miracle I am here," he said to the crowd below, who screamed his name in a passion usually reserved for rock stars. "We have started to beat the evil incubated inside my body."

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Chavez's return was announced in a series of three messages on his Twitter account, the first of them reading: "We've arrived once again in our Venezuelan homeland. Thank you, my God!! Thank you, beloved nation!! We will continue our treatment here."

They were the first messages to appear on Chavez's Twitter account since Nov. 1.

"I'm clinging to Christ and trusting in my doctors and nurses," another tweet on Chavez's account said. "Onward toward victory always!! We will live and we will triumph!!"

Vice President Nicolas Maduro said on television that Chavez arrived at 2:30 a.m. and was taken to the Dr. Carlos Arvelo Military Hospital in Caracas, where he will continue his treatment.

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On top of that, the week ended with defense attorneys openly questioning whether their conversations with clients were being secretly monitored. “We have significant reasons to believe we have been listened in [on],” David Nevin, defense attorney for KSM said at at press conference. “After this week,” said defense attorney James Connell, “the paranoia levels have kicked up a notch.”

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One Today

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores, peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies. One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors, each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day: pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper— bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,

on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives— to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day: equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined, the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches 2
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands

as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs, buses launching down avenues, the symphony

of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways, the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,

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Now, with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) likely to be confirmed as the next secretary of state, theUnited States will have a top diplomat who has been a frequent critic of America’s 50-year-old effort to force regime change in Havana.

In recent years, Kerry has been the Senate’s most prominent skeptic of US-funded pro-democracy efforts that give financial backing to dissident groups in Cuba and beam anti-Castro programming to the island through radio and television programs based in Miami.

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There are plenty of tragic and inspiring choices, but the most obvious legacy Castro will leave behind is the broken family.

As the plane touched down at Jose Marti Airport I still wasn’t sure I would be allowed to enter Cuba in the first place. I had spent my last trip a few months earlier conducting illegal interviews with the country’s most famous boxing champions, men who had turned down millions and were only willing to discuss it if I paid them under the table. Of course there was no official way to have these interviews given the sensitivity of the topic. The state security had started following me after the first interview. All the Cubans I was working with couldn’t understand why we weren’t being arrested. But we kept going until we landed every interview on my wish list. Then it was just a matter of getting that material out.

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He is reported to have sent his deputy foreign minister, Faisal al-Miqdad, on a trip to Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela to sound out their respective leaders about the possibility of asylum.

All three countries have left-wing governments that are, to varying degrees and in different ways, antagonistic toward the US.

The most likely destination for the Syrian despot would appear to be Venezuela. Its President Hugo Chavez recently described Assad as his country’s “legitimate” leader.

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The 37-year-old activist — who has won numerous journalism awards, been named on Time’s 100 Most Influential list and interviewed recently re-elected US President Barack Obama — was detained as she and others protested the arrest of opposition lawyers and activists outside a Havana police station. She was released late Thursday night.

The news was broken on Twitter Thursday by Yohandry, a pro-government website which is rumored to have been set up by the state itself as a counterweight to Sanchez’s own blog, Generation Y.

Then her husband Reinaldo Escobar, a fellow activist, confirmed Sanchez's release.

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Authorities in several countries are still adding up Sandy’s costs, but the storm appears to be one of the most devastating to the region in years. Eastern Cuba and southern Haiti were especially hard hit by searing winds and flash floods.

At least 69 deaths have been reported across the Caribbean so far, including 52 in Haiti and 11 in Cuba. The toll could rise as emergency responders and relief workers reach more rural and mountainous areas.

After battering Jamaica Wednesday, the storm made landfall early Thursday in Santiago de Cuba as a Category 2 hurricane with gusts topping 110 miles per hour. Its ferocious winds shredded roofs in the island's second-largest city (population 500,000) and sent soggy masonry crashing down into the streets.

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Cuban authorities have not yet estimated the economic toll, but the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported there was "severe damage to housing, economic activity, fundamental public services and institutions of education, health and culture."

Sandy killed 11 people on the island including a 4-month-old boy, making it the deadliest since 2005's Hurricane Dennis, a category 5 monster that killed 16 people and did $2.4 billion in damage. More than 130,000 homes were damaged by Sandy, including 15,400 that were destroyed, Granma said.

The storm also is blamed for the deaths of 52 people in Haiti, two in the Bahamas, two in the Dominican Republic, one in Jamaica and one in Puerto Rico.

Sandy's center came onshore early Thursday just west of Santiago, a city of about 500,000 people in agricultural southeastern Cuba.

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