Cubans hung flags and decorated the "Anti-imperialist Tribunal" stage for a concert within earshot of the US mission in Havana, all to celebrate the 80th birthday of Fidel Castro -- nowhere to be seen in 12 days.
Castro, who turns 80 today, handed over power provisionally after undergoing intestinal surgery to his brother, Raul, 11 days ago. Neither has been seen since.
Yet the birthday party goes on, although Fidel Castro, the country's comandante for 48 years, asked that the celebration be postponed while he recovers.
Cuban officials have insisted regularly over the past week that Castro is recuperating from surgery, and that life in the only Communist country in the Americas was "completely normal," as they did again on Friday.
Castro himself has always answered questions of who would lead a post-Castro Cuba by saying that the revolution would go on with him or without him. Cuba is not peppered with his portraits and statues, as if to say Cuba is something more than Castro.
That, despite wishes of Cuban exiles in Miami, who launched spontaneous street celebrations on news that Castro was ill, but which have since died out.
US officials told Cubans in Miami and in Cuba to stay put and wait to see what comes next, for fear of conflict in Cuba or of mass immigration into the US.
In the US, the "empire" just 150km to the north of the Caribbean island's shores, the top US diplomat for the Americas, Tom Shannon, stressed the need for a "consistent policy" toward Cuba.
"We might be at a moment of great change. We might see the regime hardening, as it attempts to assert its control," Shannon said in Washington on Friday.
The regime that has been in place since Castro marched his bearded revolutionaries into Havana on New Year's Day in 1959 desperately wants normality, and plans for today's birthday celebration a nationwide "cane mobilization," recalling the earliest days of the revolution, when idealistic young men and women cut sugarcane for the good of all.
Castro has asked his birthday be moved back to Dec. 2, the 50th anniversary of his return from exile in Mexico aboard the boat Granma, to topple US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NASA on Saturday rolled out its towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it began preparations for its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. The maneuver, which takes up to 12 hours, would allow the US space agency to begin a string of tests for the Artemis 2 mission, which could blast off as early as Feb. 6. The immense orange and white SLS rocket, and the Orion vessel were slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved 6.5km to Launch Pad 39B. If the
RSS