CASTRO’S YOUNGER BROTHER IS FOCUS OF ATTENTION NOW
The New York Times
August 3, 2006
With the mysterious illness of Fidel Castro this week, attention has turned to his brother, Raúl, the new provisional leader of Cuba, a man whose personality is little known to Cubans and who remained out of sight and silent on Wednesday.
As the police stepped up patrols in Havana ’s poorer neighborhoods, the state run news media released little information about Fidel Castro’s medical condition after abdominal surgery Tuesday or Raúl Castro’s whereabouts, deepening uncertainty about the future of the government.
“That is totally consistent with the culture of this government,” said Lisandro Pérez, a Cuban-American sociologist at Florida International University. “What is surprising is not that they’re trying to keep this under wraps, but that they made it public in the first place.”
WHERE THE NEXT CASTRO MIGHT TAKE FIDEL'S CUBA
The Christian Science Monitor
August 03, 2006
MEXICO CITY – Where Fidel Castro is known as the publicly charismatic visionary, his younger brother Raúl is the technician, the talent scout - the consummate manager.
Fidel sees China's gradual shift toward free-market reform as a betrayal of socialism. Raúl, the pragmatist, sees it as an economic reality, which someday may have to be implemented in Cuba.
As second-in-command, Raúl has only recently emerged from the shadows, but experts say the two brothers have balanced their strengths and weaknesses since they plotted the Cuban Revolution of 1959.
Now that Fidel has handed temporary control to Raúl as he recuperates from gastrointestinal surgery as announced Monday night, analysts are weighing the kind of regime that his 75-year-old brother would form while at Cuba's helm.
So long as Raúl is a provisional leader, no one expects anything but the status quo. Even in the long-term, many say his economic instincts and organizational knack won't amount to much in the face of domestic and foreign pressure.
But should Raúl eventually become the permanent leader of Cuba after Fidel's death, some analysts say the less-iconic younger brother could ultimately start to build consensus and open up the country's economy - allowing greater numbers of Cubans to set up restaurants, rent out rooms to tourists, and sell farm products to local markets. Some believe this could also start to ease hostilities with the United States.
"After Raúl had a chance to put his own stamp on things, I would expect better relations with the US," says Brian Latell, a former CIA agent who authored a biography of Raúl called "After Fidel." "That would be something that would reflect the overwhelming desire of the Cuban people. In other words, it would be a politically smart move."
MEXICO'S MISSION: BRIDGE THE DIVIDE
Opinion
The Christian Science Monitor
August 03, 2006
By Todd A. Eisenstadt
WASHINGTON – Hundreds of thousands of supporters have been mobilized by the runner-up in Mexico's July 2 presidential election who has undermined his legal appeal - to be decided by Sept. 6 - by threatening nonrecognition of the winner if each and every ballot is not recounted.
As the increasingly acrimonious controversy over Mexico's July 2 presidential election passes from tallying votes to the electoral court (and to the streets), the debate over the vote count distracts attention from the big picture. Mexico is bitterly divided along class lines, and the 2006 vote distribution makes this clearer than ever.
All of Mexico anxiously awaits the electoral court's final declaration regarding appeals by left-leaning Andrés Manuel López Obrador (commonly referred to as AMLO), who lost to right-leaning Felipe Calderón by approximately 0.5 percent of the vote. The lesson of this cliffhanger is that Mexico's red-blue divide has worsened over a decade of uneven economic growth.
With few exceptions, urban, globalized, and affluent northern Mexico, including economic hubs Monterrey and Guadalajara, went for Mr. Calderón's blue-logo National Action Party (PAN), while the poor center and south chose Mr. López Obrador's gold and red-flagged Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). AMLO won Mexico City, where he served as mayor until last year, its suburbs (Mexico State), and the rural south.
IN HAITI, ANNAN SEEKS SOLUTIONS
The Miami Herald
Aug. 04, 2006
PORT-AU-PRINCE - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for strengthening Haiti's national police force with better-qualified personnel, advisers and equipment to stem an upsurge in kidnapping and lawlessness.
Annan, making his first trip to Haiti, said Thursday the challenges facing the troubled Caribbean country remained vast and that Haitians were "impatient" for change, but that "great strides" had been made in recent months.
"We have achieved a lot but much, much more needs to be done," Annan said in a speech at the National Palace. "These criminals should be ashamed to call themselves Haitians when the nation is at a critical stage of rebuilding itself."
Haiti experienced relative calm after President René Préval's February election victory but since May, dozens of foreigners and Haitians have been kidnapped and gang fighting has forced hundreds of people to flee their homes in Port-au-Prince.
SOME AFFECTION, LITTLE FUSS IN HAVANA
The Christian Science Monitor
August 04, 2006
HAVANA – As Miriam Castillo settles into a seat aboard Flight 830 from Caracas to Havana with help from her son, she looks blankly out the window, her lips twitching upward into a smile.
Nearly blind, she is setting off on a one-month, all-expense-paid medical visit to Cuba, thanks to Fidel Castro. Like so many other beneficiaries of President Castro's social and medical programs, she will return to Venezuela seeing the world as if it were new, she says.
" Gracias to Fidel," she murmurs. "What would we do without him?"
Three days after it was announced that the 79-year-old icon himself had had "complicated" surgery, the world was asking the same question. But on the streets of Havana, Ms. Castillo's great love for Castro is balanced by a sense of ambivalence. Most here have never known a Cuba without Fidel Castro, and they cannot fathom it now.
Whether it springs from a lack of information in this cloistered country or the understanding that Castro has weathered countless crises in the past, there is a clear lack of urgency along Havana's boulevards.
"Well, it's possible we could be on the verge of a new era," shrugs Francisco, a pool attendant at one of the city's upscale tourist hotels, who would not give his full name. "But more likely this is just one more of those weeks filled with confusion that leads to nothing. We are all behind our president and pray for his health."
HAITI VIOLENCE DRIVES AWAY FOREIGN MISSIONARIES
The Miami Herald
Aug. 05, 2006
An American minister and his companion snatched on their way to church. Franciscan friars abducted on a busy street. A Canadian pastor seized at gunpoint from his rural orphanage.
Missionaries have become prime targets in Haiti, where an upsurge in violence has made their jobs more difficult and dangerous at a time when they are needed most.
Religious workers, mostly Protestant and Roman Catholic, say they are trying to lower their profile in the often-lawless country, cloistering themselves in fortified compounds protected by razor-wire walls and armed guards and going out as little as possible.
Others have decided to stay in their home countries. Several groups said the violence has scared off volunteers who once streamed into Haiti on short-term mission trips to build homes, install plumbing and pass out meals in some of the poorest, most desolate areas of the country.
"It's really shut down the visitors," said Tom Osbeck, of Fort Wayne, Ind., whose Protestant-run Jesus in Haiti Ministry operates a school in a rural town north of the capital. "People are leery of coming. They read about the kidnappings in the news."
LEFTIST’S BLOCKADE DIVIDES MEXICO CITY, AND HIS SUPPORTERS
The New York Times
August 5, 2006
MEXICO CITY, Aug. 4 — All week, the leftist candidate for president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and his allies in the city government shut down the main avenue running through downtown to demand a recount in last month’s election.
On Friday, with tensions steadily rising, the Federal Electoral Tribunal announced that it would issue its decision on Saturday morning on whether a recount was necessary.
The country has anxiously awaited that moment since Mr. López Obrador refused to accept the results of the July 2 election, saying he wanted nothing short of a complete recount.
Now, there is widespread speculation that if the court refuses his demand, the blockades, sit-ins and marches he has led over the last month could become more belligerent, and even violent.
Mr. López Obrador has consistently said his followers will only engage in peaceful acts of civil disobedience, but he has also carefully avoided saying what steps he will take if the court rules against him.
MEXICO TRIBUNAL REJECTS DEMAND FOR VOTE RECOUNT
The New York Times
August 6, 2006
MEXICO CITY, Aug. 5 — A seven-member electoral tribunal on Saturday unanimously rejected a demand from the leftist candidate for president for a complete recount of votes, setting the stage for more protests by thousands of his supporters who have camped out in the capital, claiming the election last month was fraudulent.
Later in the day, the candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who champions the cause of the poor, refused to accept the ruling at a raucous rally in the Zócalo, the city’s historic central square. He called on his followers to continue a campaign of civil disobedience in support of a full recount. He gave no hint of what the next move in that campaign would be.
“We demand that the magistrates rectify their decision because they have the ability and the moral responsibility to do it,” he said, as a crowd of several thousand chanted “fraud, fraud.”
During a two-hour morning session, the judges ordered that the votes in the July 2 election be recounted in only 11,839 of the 130,000 polling places.
IN THE LONG RUN, DEMOCRACY IN CUBA INEVITABLE
OPINION
The Miami Herald
Aug. 06, 2006
BY BILL FRIST
Widespread media reports strongly suggest that Fidel Castro will die in the near future. While it appears that Raúl Castro will take over in his wake, I fervently hope that the Castro family dictatorship will not long outlive Fidel. In the long term, I believe that a transition to democracy is inevitable for Cuba. While U.S. government support and assistance will be critical to making democracy succeed in Cuba, they will not prove sufficient in isolation.
The undertaking is simply too large. Although Cuba's natural beauty and talented, hard-working population will afford it significant long-term advantages in the global economy, it is important to recall just how far Cuba has fallen. Once Latin America's wealthiest country (and the third wealthiest country in the hemisphere after the United States and Canada), Cuba now has a standard of living far below the Latin American median. Throughout the country, trained doctors and veterinarians work at menial jobs while millions go to bed hungry.
Mexico, for example, enjoys nearly three times Cuba's per-capita income. Entrepreneurs will have to invest billions of dollars just to bring Cuba's infrastructure and per-capita income up to Mexico's levels. I'm confident that it can happen, but it won't be easy. If Cuba ever hopes to return to developed-nation status, it will require decades of hard work.
The U.S. Government can help. I have cosponsored legislation in Congress that would give a significant boost to our government's efforts to support a democratic transition in Cuba following the end of the Castro regime. It would provide new funding to enhance American efforts to help Cubans move towards democracy and begin a series of hemisphere-wide consultations intended to help Cuba chart a course towards the future.
A ROAD PAVED WITH HOPE
The Washington Post
August 6, 2006
LLALLAGUA, Bolivia, Aug. 5 -- About 40 people crammed into the back of the truck, some leaning against swaying side railings that threatened to completely give way with each turn. Dust from unpaved mountain roads billowed through cracks in the splintered floor. Every bump sparked a jarring current that started in the tailbone and climbed the spine.
Over the course of about 30 hours, the truck would take the group of Quechua and Aymara Indians on a journey from this highland mining and farming region to the city of Sucre, where a Constituent Assembly will be inaugurated Sunday to create a new Bolivian constitution.
Indigenous-led civil unrest toppled two presidents between 2003 and 2005, and redrafting the constitution to ensure more equality became a rallying cry for Bolivia's indigenous majority during that turmoil. December's election of President Evo Morales -- a longtime backer of constitutional reform who claims Aymara ancestry -- officially sealed a redrafting process that he calls "the re-founding of Bolivia."
COMEDIAN IS SERIOUS: HE'S GOING TO RUN AGAINST CHÁVEZ
The Miami Herald
Aug. 06, 2006
CARACAS - Benjamín Rausseo, alias the Count of Guácharo, is best known for his bawdy, stand-up comedy act and his comic theme-park on the holiday island of Margarita, known as the "Kingdom of Musipán."
But now the Count says he's keen to acquire another title: He wants to be president of Venezuela. And the funny thing is, he may just prove more popular than any of the dozen or so opposition candidates whose hats are already in the ring.
"We're going to swap communism for tourism," says Rausseo, who has formed a party called Piedra, or rock, and plans to stand against leftist President Hugo Chávez in the Dec. 3 elections.
A self-made businessman of 45, the "Count" was born to a poor family in the eastern state of Monagas. As a kid, he sold newspapers and worked as a shoeshine boy, before studying drama and turning to comedy as a livelihood.
CUBAN OFFICIAL ASSURES COUNTRY THAT CASTRO IS ON MEND
The Washington Post
August 6, 2006;
HAVANA, Aug. 5 -- Fidel Castro is recovering satisfactorily from stomach surgery, Cuba's vice president said Saturday, while government sources said he had started to eat and sit up in bed.
Vice President Carlos Lage Dávila, speaking on a trip to Bolivia, was the third Cuban official in the past two days to reassure the Communist-ruled country that Castro was on the mend from surgery for internal bleeding. He gave no further details in the report by the state news agency Prensa Latina.
In Havana, where residents were stunned at Monday's announcement that Castro had temporarily ceded power to his younger brother, Raúl Castro, sources who had spoken to government officials said that while he may not have the all-clear yet, Fidel Castro was doing well for a man of 79. Neither Castro brother has been seen since the handover of power.
In Brazil, the Folha de SaoPaulo newspaper reported that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and members of the ruling Workers' Party had been told by Cuban officials that Fidel Castro had a malignant stomach tumor and his condition was worse than has been publicly admitted. A Brazilian government spokesman said the report was unfounded.
RAÚL AND THE UNBEARABLE SHADOW OF FIDEL
OPINION
The Miami Herald
Aug. 06, 2006
By CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
Fidel Castro was taking great pains to prepare his 80th birthday celebration. It was set for Aug. 13. Some official note told of "thousands of international invitees." It was to be his apotheosis. In the classic world, the word apotheosis was given to the ceremony that conferred the condition of gods upon a nation's heroes. But Castro couldn't turn into a god. His diverticula -- small ulcers that lacerate the intestine and sometimes cause profuse bleeding -- got in the way. The hemorrhage was so intense that they had to operate on him urgently. Given his age, the surgery was very risky, but failure to attempt it could become an inevitable death sentence.
From that point on, suspicious maneuvers began. After the operation, and on a provisional basis, as the official document stipulates half a dozen times, Fidel Castro transferred his powers and responsibilities to Raúl, his younger brother, an elderly general 75 years old, addicted to whiskey, cockfighting and bawdy jokes. Shortly thereafter, they declared that the Comandante was recovering quickly but decreed that his health was "a state secret, so as not to give weapons to Yankee imperialism."
PRESSURE TACTICS A THREAT TO FREE ELECTIONS
EDITORIAL
The Miami Herald
Aug. 06, 2006
If Mexico's Andrés Manuel López Obrador were as good at attracting votes as he is at making political mischief, he would have won last month's presidential election by a mile. Instead, Mr. López Obrador lost by a hair's-breadth to Felipe Calderón, principally because he ran an erratic campaign and displayed a streak of demagoguery that raised doubts about his suitability for the job of president. In the five weeks since the July 2 election, he has proven those doubts well-founded, trying to win by force that which he could not win at the polls.
Mr. López Obrador has staged mass demonstrations in the center of Mexico City to claim that he was the victim of electoral fraud. At the same time, he has filed a legal complaint with the nation's highest electoral tribunal, known by the acronym TRIFE, outlining his objections in detail. Fair enough.
Yet he also has done his best to poison the well of public opinion by insisting that only a full recount of all 41 million ballots will satisfy his followers. He has not, however, made a case for widespread fraud, hoping that random miscounts in scattered precincts will undermine the legitimacy of an electoral process that outside observers have deemed fair and transparent.
DEBATING THE COURSE OF CHILE’S RIVERS
The New York Times
August 6, 2006
COYHAIQUE, Chile — With Chile trying to manage both Latin America’s most dynamic economy and a looming energy squeeze, the government has embraced a plan to build a series of dams here in the rugged, pristine heart of Patagonia that would flood thousands of acres.
The plan, proposed by a Spanish-owned electricity company, would harness the rushing rivers of the sparsely populated region known as Aisén, which is dotted with national parks and nature reserves. But environmental groups have condemned the proposal, which they say will damage ranching and tourism. They have mounted an international campaign to block construction.
“There are so few places on earth with the qualities of the Patagonia region of Chile that it’s really criminal to try to foist this kind of project on the Chilean people in the name of avoiding impending blackouts and all that sort of thing,” said Glenn Switkes, Latin American coordinator for the International Rivers Network. “This is going to be a long battle, in the trenches, using every legal and political tactic possible.”
ENERGY REMAINS CUBA'S ACHILLES' HEEL
The Miami Herald
Aug. 07, 2006
Cuba could be sitting on as much as nine billion barrels of undiscovered offshore crude oil, yet energy remains the Achilles' heel for the island's economy, experts say.
In recent months, Cuban leader Fidel Castro has focused on managing the latest chronic power blackouts, in what could become his final obsession. And there's a lot to manage.
Last year, the island's thermo-electric generation facilities began breaking down, plagued by maintenance problems worsened by the use of poor quality heavy crude oil. The power outages also disrupted water service and sparked a series of spontaneous demonstrations in the neighborhoods of Mariano and Havana Vieja in May and June 2005.
Since then the Cuban government has spent some $800 million on diesel-fueled generators placed around the country to power homes and government offices.
"What I call the Home Depot strategy," said former oil executive Jorge R. Piñon Cervera on Thursday in Miami at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy.
BROWARD WOMAN REMEMBERS CUBA AS HAVEN FROM HOLOCAUST
The Miami Herald
Aug. 07, 2006
HAPPY DAYS: This 1955 Weinbach family photo shows a younger Claire Weinbach and her daughter Graciela, then 6 months old. Graciela died a few years later and is buried in a Havana cemetary.
Claire Weinbach remembers a Cuba where families spent weekends enjoying the crystal blue ocean, children played in the lush parks and loved ones gathered for extravagant Sunday dinners.
Weinbach, 76, a Jew born in Belgium, said some of her best memories are from her nine years living in pre-Castro Cuba, a place she called "paradise."
"I came to Havana and fell in love with it," said Weinbach, who now lives in Hollywood. "Everybody there loved life."
Weinbach began her married life in Cuba, gave birth to three children there and was able to put behind her childhood of horror as a prisoner in French concentration camps.
But Weinbach also experienced sad times on the island, where her 4-year-old daughter, Graciela, died from renal cancer. She was buried in a Havana cemetery.
CUBAN MODERNIZATION CONFINED TO POCKETS
The Miami Herald
Aug. 07, 2006
In movies and memories, sepia-tinted snapshots depict the Cuban economy of the past -- sugar cane fields, bejeweled tourists in casinos, the unmistakable presence of wealth.
Then came portraits of the Soviet years -- of lines, ration cards and an economy crippled by bureaucracy.
Today, Cuba is both and neither. Nearly half a century after Fidel Castro took power, the Cuban economy is such a study in jarring contrasts that few images can capture its reality.
There are showrooms where you can buy a Mercedes or Peugeot, sparkling hotels built and managed by foreigners, and a budding cellphone culture. There is oil, nickel and mineral ore, such as limestone and iron. China is investing, and Venezuela plowed in $900 million in 2004.
Yet the prosperous, modern pockets are mostly outposts of foreign corporations. Cubans still live in crumbling buildings with broken-down appliances. And the eight-million-ton sugar harvest of 1989 is just a memory -- only 1.3 million tons were cut last year.
CUBANS PRAY FOR CASTRO, NATION
The Miami Herald
Aug. 07, 2006
HAVANA - Cubans across the island turned to prayer Sunday as the nation continued to cope with an uncertain future and still unclear leadership brought on by Fidel Castro's health crisis.
As religious leaders asked for prayers and unity, a barrage of get-well messages poured in from leftist Latin American leaders and even Elián González, the Cuban boy whose arrival in Miami six years ago set off a custody battle between his father in Cuba and several of his Miami relatives.
"We send you this letter to let you know that we are worried about your health," stated a letter addressed to "grandpa Fidel" and penned by Elián and published Sunday in the Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde.
Castro's younger brother Raúl has been officially in charge since the announcement that Fidel, just days before his 80th birthday, had undergone surgery for intestinal bleeding. But no further details have been released, and neither Castro nor his 75-year-old brother have been seen in public, sparking broad speculation about the illness.
SOME DOUBT CASTRO WILL RETURN TO FULL ROLE
The New York Times
August 7, 2006
HAVANA, Aug. 6 (Reuters) — Fidel Castro was recovering from surgery on Sunday, Cuban officials said, but some said they did not know whether he would ever be strong enough to return to full power.
Almost a week after the 79-year-old Mr. Castro’s unprecedented provisional transfer of power to his younger brother Raúl, Fidel Castro’s exact whereabouts and condition remained a mystery to most Cubans.
Cuban officials, seeking to allay suspicions that Mr. Castro had lost his grip on the island nation he had dominated since his revolution in 1959, insisted in brief statements that he was recovering from surgery for internal bleeding. But they said he might have to reduce his workload.
The National Assembly president, Ricardo Alarcón, said Mr. Castro came through the complicated surgery so well that a few hours later “he was talking, he was making jokes.”
RULING ON MEXICO VOTE FAILS TO END DISPUTE
The Christian Science Monitor
August 07, 2006
MEXICO CITY – Over the past month the slogan of Andrés Manuel López Obrador's fight for a recount in Mexico's July 2 presidential election - "vote by vote, polling place by polling place" - has echoed through streets and hung on walls throughout the country.
So the Federal Electoral Court's refusal to recount each of the 41 million ballots cast comes as a severe blow to supporters of the leftist leader and raises the possibility of prolonged unrest.
At a rally after the long-anticipated court ruling Saturday Mr. Obrador promised to uphold his controversial civil resistance campaign. For a week protesters have set up tents along more than five miles of thoroughfare, tying up traffic, hurting businesses, and angering many city residents.
But to many political observers, the court's unanimous ruling to review just 9 percent of the 130,000 polling places in the face of such massive social pressure - even if the decision leads to more protest in the immediate future - will, in the long run, help legitimize Mexico's electoral institutions.
"This ruling does not mean tremendous victory for one side or another. The real victory is for the rule of law in Mexico," says Todd Eisenstadt, an expert on Mexican election law and author of the 2004 book "Courting Democracy in Mexico." "Facing political crisis, they still made a responsible decision per their own established doctrine and case precedent."
Obrador's rival is free-trade advocate Felipe Calderón, who won the election by 0.6 of a percentage point. His team said Saturday that he accepted the court's decision. But Obrador has long maintained that he will settle for nothing less than a full recount. "We insist that the magistrates rectify their decision, because they have the ability and moral obligation to do so," he told a crowd after the ruling.
MEXICAN CANDIDATE SAYS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE WILL CONTINUE
The New York Times
August 7, 2006
MEXICO CITY, Aug. 6 — The leftist candidate for president vowed Sunday to take the daily mass demonstrations supporting his demand for a full recount of the results in last month’s presidential race to the courthouse where a special electoral court had denied his request.
Speaking to thousands of supporters in the capital’s central square, the candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, shied away from calling for more belligerent acts of civil disobedience — like seizing the city’s international airport or shutting down major highways — as some of his supporters had expected.
Instead, he told his supporters to prepare themselves for a long, drawn-out battle with the government, a fight “to defend democracy.” He suggested that he would carry on his protest even after the electoral tribunal — which on Saturday turned down the demand for the recount — makes its final decision and certifies the president-elect in September.
Besides taking their protest to the courthouse, in the southern part of the city, on Monday, he and other members of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution were planning to form a human chain along miles of the capital city’s central avenue, Paseo de la Reforma.
MEXICAN RUNNER-UP REMAINS DEFIANT
The Washington Post
August 7, 2006
MEXICO CITY, Aug. 6 -- Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the runner-up in Mexico's presidential election whose supporters have erected tent cities to protest the results of the July 2 vote, said Sunday that the political crisis would not be resolved by the partial recount ordered by the country's highest electoral court.
Speaking inside the 18-by-9-foot tent where he has lived for the past week, López Obrador was utterly defiant. He will not accept results of the partial recount, he declared during his first interview since a special election court on Saturday rejected his request for a full recount. And he said he would not ask his supporters to disperse even though they have brought gridlock to Mexico City's downtown.
An annulment of the election would also not be acceptable, López Obrador said, declaring that a full recount is the only option that could bring an end to the massive protests he has inspired.
"I could not accept any other outcome," he said, sitting at a plastic, folding camping table with a large Mexican flag and a dangling camping lantern behind him.
SANTIAGO CALM - ON THE SURFACE
The Miami Herald
Aug. 08, 2006
In the birthplace of Fidel Castro's revolution, in a corner of Cuba known for its rebelliousness, residents say the calm on the streets seems to be a thin cover for concern over el comandante's mysterious health crisis.
"There is a lot of uncertainty here," said a Catholic priest. "Not knowing exactly what's happening is the main source of anxiety. . . . The people are very worried, even if it doesn't appear like that."
Santiago de Cuba, the island's second-largest city, on the surface seems as calm as Havana following the announcement eight days ago that the 79-year-old Castro had undergone surgery for intestinal bleeding and temporarily ceded power to his younger brother Raúl.
Dozens of people lined up recently along San Pedro Street to buy $2.50 tickets for the 12:30 p.m. showing of a movie about famed singer Benny Moré. At a park nearby, scores of adults and children enjoyed an afternoon of ice cream and amusement rides.
STATEMENT FROM CUBA'S LADIES IN WHITE
The Miami Herald
Aug. 08, 2006
A translation of an excerpt from a statement issued Monday by Miriam Leiva, founding member of the Ladies in White group:
On Aug. 7, as on every Sunday since March 30, 2003, the Ladies in White attended church at the Santa Rita de Casia Church and walked down the middle of Fifth Avenue in Miramar, Havana. But this wasn't an ordinary Sunday. It was the Sunday after the provisional delegation of power by Fidel Castro to Raúl Castro and five other Cuban leaders.
This movement of the Cuban civil society does not have a political nature, ideological preferences or confessional exclusions. We do not challenge and we're not a party. We have neither a spokeswoman nor a hierarchy. We are the voices of the 75 innocent prisoners of conscience, imprisoned during the Black Spring of 2003, and our families. We have suffered much, but we harbor neither hatred nor resentment.
If anything has become evident this week, it's that the government of Cuba must open itself to its people and simultaneously to the world. The inner fear can be smelled, can be felt on the empty streets of Havana and in cities and towns all over the country. . . . The quiet and timorous commentaries do not match the noisy and fun-loving idiosyncrasy [of the Cuban people].
But the causes of this unreal calm make no one feel comfortable in the stillness and near absence of the habitual sounds. It's as if everyone had come to a halt, astonished. We have felt the surveillance, and sensed the repressive elements preparing to act at the slightest signal.
CUBAN OFFICIALS SAY CASTRO IS RECOVERING AND THE NATION IS STABLE
The New York Times
August 8, 2006
MEXICO CITY, Aug. 7 — High-ranking Cuban officials worked hard Monday to put out the message that Cuba was stable after the transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his younger brother last week.
Fidel Castro has remained out of the public eye since undergoing surgery a week ago for an undisclosed illness that involved intestinal bleeding. For the first time in his 47 years as Cuba’s authoritarian leader, Mr. Castro relinquished power, to his brother Raúl, who is the defense minister, along with a cadre of cabinet officials. The government has said Fidel Castro’s health is “a state secret.”
Although no detailed information on Mr. Castro’s illness or a prognosis for him has been released, the president of the National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcón, and the minister in charge of the island’s economy, Carlos Lage Dávila, both said Monday that he was recovering rapidly.
SEIZE OPPORTUNITY, CUBA'S ACTIVISTS SAY
The Miami Herald
Aug. 08, 2006
After initial shock and relative silence following the stunning health crisis of Fidel Castro and temporary ceding of power to his brother, Cuban activists and government opponents on the island began speaking out more forcefully Monday, expressing a common assessment: Cuba will never be the same.
In a statement issued via e-mail, a group of dissidents' wives known as the Ladies in White spoke of an "inner fear" that "can be smelled, can be felt on the empty streets of Havana, and in cities and towns all over the country."
"It's as if everyone had come to a halt, astonished," said the statement written by Miriam Leiva, an activist whose husband was among 75 government opponents jailed during a 2003 crackdown. "We have felt the surveillance, and sensed the repressive elements preparing to act at the slightest signal.
"Cuba will never again be the same," the statement said. "The people deserve the right to express themselves without fear, to know what's happening, to contribute their opinions, to participate in the decisions, to really be the masters of their fate, to help our homeland to recover economically and join the international commonwealth."
NO TEARS FOR CASTRO
Opinion
The Miami Herald
Aug. 08, 2006
By GEORGE WEIGEL
Fidel Castro's transfer of power to his equally lethal brother, Raúl, prompted me to remember the strange circumstances in which I learned that Fidel Castro had publicly denounced me to an international congress of journalists meeting in Havana in late 1999.
I was having Christmas dinner with family and friends in Rome when one of my hosts asked whether I had seen the fax that the Cuban mission to the Vatican was sending around town. I confessed that I hadn't, and the document was fetched. It turned out that, in the course of a typical four-hour harangue, Castro had devoted a few paragraphs to denouncing the "Yanqui" who had slandered him in my recently published biography of Pope John Paul II.
I was touched by Castro's attentiveness -- he actually called me something that can't be printed here -- but I also was struck by his defensiveness and an insecurity unmitigated by age or manifest power.
What I had written in Witness to Hope was the plain truth: The papal pilgrimage to Cuba in January 1998 was the first time in almost 40 years that Castro had not been the undisputed center of attention at a public event in Cuba. I also had recounted other aspects of the papal visit that Castro would have preferred to ignore, such as the fact that John Paul II had not mentioned the Castro regime once in five days; that the pope had tried, in various ways, to give back to the people of Cuba the rich spiritual culture that was their birthright; that he had challenged Cubans to be the protagonists of their history, rather than thinking of themselves, as Castro had so long proposed, as victims of "Yanqui aggression." El Jefe was not pleased.
GUNFIRE, BOMBS USED IN WAVE OF URBAN TERROR IN BRAZIL
The Miami Herald
Aug. 08, 2006
SAO PAULO - Suspected gang members sprayed gunfire at police, set off bombs outside government buildings and torched buses and banks Monday in a new wave of attacks across South America's largest city -- the third in four months.
Criminals believed to be part of a gang run by jailed leaders attacked 78 symbols of government and businesses across Sao Paulo state, Brazil's most populous, said the state police commander, Col. Elizeu Eclair Teixeira Borges.
Police killed two suspects and took 12 into custody. One security guard was injured in a bank attack, and four bystanders were hurt by shards of glass after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a business, Borges said.
In one of the most prominent attacks, a large explosion damaged the main entrance to the state justice ministry building in the city's historic center, destroying computers inside and blowing out windows of neighboring buildings as high as the sixth floor.
Bullets were fired through windows of a nearby state finance ministry building, and assailants opened fire on three police stations in the predawn attacks.
SAO PAULO LARGELY AVOIDS GANG VIOLENCE
The Miami Herald
Aug. 08, 2006
SAO PAULO, Brazil - Suspected gang members exchanged gunfire with police, hurled Molotov cocktails at banks and burned buses for a second night in a row, but South America's biggest city largely avoided the violence with criminals rampaging in cities far from Sao Paulo.
The attacks late Monday and early Tuesday came a day after suspected members of the First Capital Command torched buses and banks, sprayed police stations with gunfire and set off bombs throughout the metropolis of 18 million.
Sao Paulo's public safety department didn't immediately release updated information Tuesday on the fresh round of attacks across Brazil's most populous state or say whether there were any deaths or injuries.
But Brazilian media reported that banks, police stations and other government buildings were targeted and buses were burned in at least eight cities, most hundreds of kilometers (miles) from the city.
The latest outbreak of violence allegedly initiated by the gang, known here as the PCC, marks the third time in four months that it has unleashed its fury on the streets to oppose the prison transfer of its leaders.
COLOMBIA'S URIBE BEGINS SECOND TERM
The Washington Post
August 8, 2006
BOGOTA, Colombia, Aug. 7 -- President Alvaro Uribe began a second term Monday, promising to seek an elusive peace with leftist rebels while maintaining the hard-line security policies credited with a sharp drop in murder and kidnappings.
In an inauguration ceremony attended by 11 heads of state, Uribe said he would devote "all of his energies" to pursuing a peaceful end to this nation's four-decade-old civil war.
"I'm not afraid of negotiating peace," Uribe, 54, said after taking the oath of office. "I confess what worries me more is falling short of that goal and instead seeing our gains in security eroded."
After reforming the constitution last year to allow himself to seek a second term, Uribe coasted to victory in the May 28 elections with 62 percent of the vote -- 10 percentage points more than he won in 2002. He is Colombia's first sitting president to be reelected.
Despite his reputation as a free-market conservative and Washington's closest ally in Latin America, Uribe at times in his speech sounded like the left-leaning social democrats favored of late by voters in neighboring countries.
COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT URIBE SWORN IN FOR SECOND TERM
The Miami Herald
Aug. 08, 2006
BOGOTA - President Alvaro Uribe was sworn in for a second term Monday, promising to seek an elusive peace with leftist rebels while maintaining the hard-line security policies credited with a sharp drop in Colombia's murder and kidnapping rates.
In a ceremony attended by 11 heads of state but marked by the absence of presidents from regional heavyweights Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela, Uribe said he would devote "all of his energies" to pursuing a peaceful end to this nation's four-decade-old civil war.
"I'm not afraid of negotiating peace. I confess what worries me more is falling short of that goal and instead seeing our gains in security eroded," the 54-year-old Uribe said after retaking the oath of office, in a speech short on specifics.
After reforming the constitution last year to allow him to seek a second term, the law-and-order Uribe coasted to victory in May 28 elections, winning 62 percent of the vote -- 10 points more than in his 2002 victory.
CUBANS EXPECT CASTRO BACK SOON
The Miami Herald
Aug. 09, 2006
HAVANA - Official assurances that Fidel Castro will be back on his feet in a few weeks after intestinal surgery have trickled down to the street, where Cubans say the leader's time isn't up yet.
"He is invulnerable, and will get better," said Lazaro M. Martínez, a 65-year-old flower vendor. "We are anxious to see him, but we also understand the situation he is in."
Castro has not been seen publicly since July 26.
Five days later, Castro's secretary went on state television to announce that the leader had undergone surgery for intestinal bleeding and was temporarily ceding power to his younger brother, Defense Minister Raúl Castro.
Statements in recent days -- such as Vice President Carlos Lage's remark that Castro himself has said he'll be back at work "in a few weeks" -- seem to have calmed uncertainty and speculation among Cubans that their leader was on his deathbed, or maybe even in his grave. Still, details on his specific condition or what surgical procedure Castro underwent have yet to be released.
CASTRO FOE SOUGHT CHANGE
The Miami Herald
Aug. 09, 2006
Gustavo Arcos Bergnes, a former Fidel Castro loyalist who broke with the regime in the early years of the revolution, spent years behind bars and ultimately became a symbol of honor and wisdom for the opposition movement, died Tuesday in Havana. He was 79.
The exact cause of death was not immediately known, but relatives said he had been in and out of the hospital for the past week for respiratory and kidney problems.
Once a fervent revolutionary who grew disillusioned with Castro and his communist ideals, Arcos grew frail with age but remained a powerful voice in the struggle for democratic reform in Cuba.
"He always had a clear sense of what was right and what was wrong," said Sebastian Arcos, a nephew who lives in Miami. "Everyone looked up to Gustavo. He had a very strong sense of duty and integrity."
CUBA SAYS FIDEL CASTRO IS RECOVERING
The Miami Herald
Aug. 09, 2006
HAVANA - Hundreds of flag-waving people rallied in Cuba's capital on Tuesday to publicly declare their support for ailing leader Fidel Castro, as assurances he was recovering began to ease Cubans' worries about their long-ruling leader.
Cubans gathered in a working-class neighborhood sang the national anthem and chanted "Long live Fidel! Long live Raul!" in support of Castro and his brother Raul, to whom he has temporarily ceded power. Local Communist officials, meanwhile, made patriotic statements from a sound stage on a tractor-trailer.
"We are praying for the life of our commander in chief because we love him," said neighborhood resident Alejandrina Legran. "He's the prince of our people. We owe him our respect and obedience."
Meanwhile, Castro's ally and friend, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, expressed confidence in the Cuban leader's recovery, calling him "the father of this continent's revolutionaries."
"I have very, very much faith that Fidel will fully recover from his ailment, from the operation they had to perform on him," Chavez said Tuesday night in Venezuela, referring to Castro's recent intestinal surgery.
LÓPEZ OBRADOR INTENDS TO FIGHT TO THE END -- MAYBE BEYOND
Opinion
The Miami Herald
Aug. 09, 2006
BY EUGENE ROBINSON
MEXICO CITY -- This huge cosmopolitan city takes almost everything in stride, but nerves are beginning to fray. For the past week, the Paseo De La Reforma and the Zocalo -- Mexico City's grandest boulevard and its most historic plaza -- have been occupied by a tent-city encampment of protesters demanding a recount of last month's presidential election. Traffic was always bad, but now the concept of gridlock is being redefined.
On Thursday, demonstrators briefly blocked the entrance to the stock exchange. Rumors that they would try to shut down Mexico City's international airport prompted authorities to send in elite forces to beef up security. Newspapers speculate daily on other potential targets.
In his first interview with U.S. journalists since the election, the man responsible for all the drama, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, didn't sound like the delusional would-be Messiah his opponents portray. He sounded like a confident, stubborn man who truly believes he was robbed of the July 2 election and intends to fight to the bitter end. Maybe beyond.
Official returns showed leftist López Obrador losing to the candidate of the right, Felipe Calderón, by a margin of 0.6 percent. López Obrador seemed a sure winner, and he alleged widespread fraud in the vote count. On Saturday, the Federal Electoral Judicial Tribunal ordered a limited recount -- fewer than 10 percent of ballots cast will be reviewed -- and López Obrador answered by renewing his demand that every single vote cast nationwide be recounted.
LÓPEZ OBRADOR PUSHES FOR FULL RECOUNT
The Miami Herald
Aug. 09, 2006
MEXICO CITY - Authorities are set to start today on a partial recount of ballots cast in Mexico's tightest presidential election in history, heightening the political tumult that has pervaded the country since the divisive July 2 vote.
One hundred twenty-seven magistrates will supervise the recount of votes in 9 percent of the country's polling places, as second-place candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador continues to press for a full recount with widening public protests.
On Tuesday morning, his supporters blocked motorists from paying tolls on five highways leading out of the capital city for about four hours. On Monday, his followers launched a campaign to heckle President Vicente Fox at his public appearances, yelling "traitor" as he inaugurated a highway in Puebla.
Thousands of protesters camping in tents have blocked Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma and historic downtown for the past 10 days and show no signs of tiring, much to the ire of residents and businesses.
López Obrador has vowed to continue his "peaceful civil resistance" measures until a full recount is realized. He maintains that error and fraud cost him the election, which was won by the National Action Party's Felipe Calderón by only 244,000 votes -- a margin of 0.6 percentage points.
POLITICS OF CORN LOOM FOR DIVIDED MEXICO
The Christian Science Monitor
August 09, 2006
PUEBLA STATE, MEXICO – Corn plays an important role in ancient Mexican mythology. The Aztecs revered a corn god named Centeotl; the Mayans believed man's flesh was formed from corn dough.
But these days the folklore of a crop that is still the centerpiece of the Mexican diet is fueling a bilateral clash between Mexico and the US as cheap American corn has inundated Mexican farms and marketplaces under the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
"They should not send their corn here, they can send it somewhere else," says farmer Luis Damaso tending his milpa, or corn patch, outside the town of Santa Ana Xalmimilulco in the central state of Puebla. "No one will pay for [our corn] now."
The politics of corn continue to escalate, as a 2008 NAFTA deadline looms for Mexico to scrap its corn and bean import tariffs. And the disputed July 2 election has only heightened those tensions. On the campaign trail, runner-up Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he would renegotiate NAFTA provisions to protect the nation's corn and bean farmers. Now Mr. Obrador is leading mass protests for a full, vote-by-vote recount of the election he lost by 0.6 of a percentage point.
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