America

Obama defends opening to Cuba, vows response to Sony hack

... Excerpt

December 19, 2014

Change will come to Cuba, President Barack Obama said Friday at his final press conference of 2014, where he also promised a U.S. response to North Korea's cyberattack on Sony Entertainment Pictures.

 

Defending his decision to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba after more than 50 years, the president said he had no plans to visit the island before the end of his term and he urged people not to expect rapid improvement in the human rights situation there.

 

"This is still a regime that represses its people," Obama said, acknowleding that Congress would not be in any hurry to end the economic embargo Washington imposed on Cuba in 1962.

 

"People are going to want to see how does this move forward before there's any serious debate about whether or not we would make major shifts in the embargo," he said.

 

The measures the president announced this week include some loosening of restrictions on travel and on remittances to Cuba.

 

Obama spoke to reporters a few hours after the FBI said it had "enough information" to conclude that North Korea was behind the Nov. 24 cyberattack on Sony.

 

"We will respond," the president said. "We'll respond proportionally, and we'll respond in a place and time and manner that we choose."

 

Pyongyang apparently targeted Sony over "The Interview," a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and the studio announced this week that it will not release the movie amid threats of attacks on theaters.

 

Obama said he regretted Sony's decision to pull the movie and that he wished studio executives had talked to him before making the move.

 

"We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States," the president said. "Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don't like, or news reports that they don't like." EFE