“Congress has put the U.S. Agency for International Development’s $45 million Cuba program’s 2008 funding on hold, following a series of troubling audits and cases of massive fraud, The Miami Herald has learned. In a quest to get the funding hold lifted, U.S. AID on Friday ordered a bottoms-up review of all its Cuba democracy programs and suspended a Miami anti-Castro exile group that spent at least $11,000 of federal grant money on personal items. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., ordered a hold on the U.S. AID Cuba program funding last month, in part in response to a $500,000 embezzlement at the Center for a Free Cuba in Washington disclosed earlier this year, federal officials said.” (07/22/08)