Former Cuban president Fidel Castro thanked Cubans for their well-wishes on his 90th birthday and criticized US President Barack Obama in a lengthy letter published in state media.
He appeared but did not speak at a gala in his honor broadcast on state television.
“I want to express my deepest gratitude for the shows of respect, greetings and praise that I’ve received in recent days, which give me strength to reciprocate with ideas that I will send to party militants and relevant organizations,” he wrote about his birthday on Saturday.
“Modern medical techniques have allowed me to scrutinize the universe,” wrote Castro, who stepped down as Cuba’s president 10 years ago after suffering a severe gastrointestinal illness.
Just after 6pm, he could be seen in footage on state television slowly approaching his seat at Havana’s Karl Marx theater, clad in a white Puma tracksuit top and green shirt.
He sat in what appeared to be a specially equipped wheelchair and watched a musical tribute by a children’s theater company, accompanied by footage of highlights from his decades in power.
He sat alongside his younger brother, Cuban President Raul Castro, and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, along with Cuba’s highest-ranking military and civilian officials.
In his letter, Castro accompanied his thanks with reminiscences about his childhood and youth in eastern Cuba, describing the geology and plant life of the region where he grew up. He touched on his father’s death shortly before his own victory in overthrowing US-backed former Cuban president Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
Castro returns at the end to criticize Obama, who appeared to anger the revolutionary leader with a March trip to Cuba in which he called for Cubans to look toward the future.
A week after the trip, Castro wrote a sternly worded letter admonishing Obama to read up on Cuban history, and declaring that “we don’t need the empire to give us anything.”
In Saturday’s letter, he criticizes Obama for not apologizing to Japanese during a May trip to Hiroshima, describing Obama’s speech there as “lacking stature.”
The Cuban government has taken a relatively low-key approach to Castro’s birthday, in comparison with the large-scale gatherings that had been planned for his 80th.
Along with the Saturday evening gala, government ministries have held small musical performances and photographic exhibitions that pay tribute to the former head of state.
Castro last appeared in public in April, closing the twice-a-decade congress of the Cuban Communist Party with a call for Cuba to stick to its socialist ideals amid ongoing normalization with the US.
The need for closer economic ties with the US has grown more urgent as Venezuela, Castro’s greatest ally, tumbles into economic free-fall, cutting the flow of subsidized oil that Cuba has depended on the South American country for more than a decade.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of