After 50 years of Castro, Cuba hails its new President - Castro

Raúl Castro has been elected Cuba's first new president in nearly 50 years, but it remains to be seen whether his elevation will herald more of the same or a change of direction for the Western hemisphere's only communist state.

Raúl, 76, was the sole candidate presented to the rubber-stamp national assembly today to succeed his ailing brother Fidel — the world's last Cold Warrior.

In what appeared to be a closing of Communist Party ranks, the Assembly promoted José Ramón Machado Ventura, 77, a 1950s revolutionary figure and party ideologue as the country's First Vice-President. He was chosen over the economic tsar Carlos Lage, who had been acting Vice-President and was widely tipped for the post.

As Fidel Castro's 49-year-rule formally drew to a close the Bush Administration urged Cuba to move towards “peaceful, democratic change” and to let its 11 million citizens become “masters of their own lives”.

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, issued a statement saying: “The Cuban people, facing the legacy of decades of tyranny, merit our solidarity and support as they seek to construct a brighter future. We urge the Cuban Government to begin a process of peaceful, democratic change by releasing all political prisoners, respecting human rights and creating a clear pathway toward free and fair elections.”

How Raúl chooses to govern, and whether Fidel will allow him much freedom of manoeuvre, remains to be seen.

Raúl was a communist long before Fidel: he was the ruthless enforcer who executed hundreds of opponents after his brother defeated the Batista regime in 1959, and who, as the world's longest-serving defence minister, enjoys the absolute loyalty of Cuba's formidable army, security services and the Communist Party.

But he is also the pragmatist who saved the economy in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union — its biggest benefactor — by encouraging foreign investment and permitting a modicum of private enterprise.

Raúl's style is the opposite of Fidel's — private, low-profile, lacking in charisma, not given to long speeches and more comfortable in a business suit than military uniform. Unlike his brother, he is also said to be an efficient manager and good delegator who gets things done. “Fidel is the political brother. Raúl is the practical one,” Fidel's exiled daughter, Alina Fernández, said.

He needs to be. He inherits a country where the average wage is less than $20 a month, food is short, the housing stock is crumbling and public transport is abysmal. Cubans revered his brother, but they do not revere him. To prosper, or even survive, he will have to deliver some marked improvements to his compatriots' standard of living in fairly short order.

In the past 18 months, while Fidel has been incapacitated, he has talked of reform, but delivered little.

He made early overtures to Washington, which were rebuffed swiftly. He has encouraged open discussion of the inefficiency of the state-run economy, and of restrictions on foreign travel and access to the internet. He has berated the poor performance of agricultural producers, acknowledged that state salaries are clearly insufficient to meet basic needs, and talked of the need for “structural and conceptual change”.

Despite the change of leadership, the mood in Cuba today was remarkably subdued. There were no rallies or marches, no public outpourings of joy or grief, no glowing tributes to “El Comandante” in the media.

Contrary to the predictions of Castro's many foes over several decades, his presidency ended not in the sort of violent counter-revolution that saw so many dictators overthrown in the former Soviet Union, but in something closer to indifference.

This is partly because Cubans have had nearly 19 months to get used to the fact that he was on the way out, and partly because few Cubans believe Castro is really relinquishing power. Most are convinced he will continue to pull the strings and veto any radical change of direction. Indeed, he has said that he will continue to make his views very clear in the periodic “reflections” he publishes in the communist party newspaper Granma. “It doesn't matter, It doesn't matter,” said a taxi driver who declined to be named. “Castro will still be in charge.”

The people of Cuba may live in an impoverished and repressive police state, but Castro has given them a national identity and the security of free housing, education and healthcare. They fear upheavals of the sort that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. They fear the introduction of unbridled capitalism — and the return of hundreds of thousands of exiles demanding the restitution of their confiscated property.

A LIFETIME IN TRAINING

June 3,1931 Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz born

1953 Participates with Fidel in the 26th of July Movement and attack on the Moncada barracks. Jailed with his brother then exiled to Mexico

1953-56 Befriends Ernesto “Che” Guevara in Mexico City, drawing him into his brother’s circle of revolutionaries

December 2, 1956 Returns to Cuba aboard the Granma with Fidel, Guevara and a handful of followers to foment revolution in Cuba

1957-59 Fights a guerrilla campaign against Batista Government with growing band of supporters from base in the wooded Sierra Maestra

1959 Rebels prevail against Batista regime. Raúl Castro marries Vilma Espín Guillois, a chemical engineer fighting with the rebels

1961-2006 Serves as Vice-President of the Council of State, National Assembly and Council of Ministers

1987-97 Shrinks Cuba’s armed forces and increases tourist industry in response to vanishing Soviet subsidy

July 31, 2006 Appointed interim president as Fidel treated for unspecified intestinal ailment

June 18, 2007 Vilma Espín Guillois dies

February 24, 2008 Raúl Castro only candidate presented to the National Assembly to replace Fidel Castro as President of Cuba

Nader Announces Run for President

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ralph Nader on Sunday announced a fresh bid for the White House, criticizing the top contenders as too close to big business and dismissing the possibility that his third-party candidacy could tip the election to Republicans.

The longtime consumer advocate is still loathed by many Democrats who accuse him of costing Al Gore the 2000 election.

Nader said most people are disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties due to a prolonged Iraq war and a shaky economy. He also blamed tax and other corporate-friendly policies under the Bush administration that he said have left many lower- and middle-class people in debt.

"You take that framework of people feeling locked out, shut out, marginalized, disrespected," he said. "You go from Iraq, to Palestine/Israel, from Enron to Wall Street, from Katrina to the bungling of the Bush administration, to the complicity of the Democrats in not stopping him on the war, stopping him on the tax cuts."

Nader, who turns 74 later this week, announced his candidacy on NBC's "Meet the Press."

In a later interview with The Associated Press, he rejected the notion of himself as a spoiler candidate, saying the electorate will not vote for a "pro-war John McCain." He also predicted his campaign would do better than in 2004, when he won just 0.3 percent of the vote as an independent.

"This time we're ready for them," said Nader of the Democratic Party lawsuits that kept him off the ballot in some states.

Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton quickly sought to portray Nader's announcement as having little impact.

"Obviously, it's not helpful to whomever our Democratic nominee is. But it's a free country," said Clinton, who called Nader's announcement a "passing fancy."

Obama dismissed Nader as a perennial presidential campaigner. "He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush and eight years later I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about," Obama added.

"I think it always would probably pull votes away from the Democrats, not the Republicans," the former Arkansas governor said on CNN.

Nader said Obama's and Clinton's lukewarm response was not surprising given that both political parties typically treat third-party candidates as "second-class citizens." Nader said he will decide in the coming days whether to run as an independent, Green Party candidate or in some other third party.

Pointing a finger at Republicans, he described McCain as a candidate for "perpetual war" and said he welcomed the support of Republican conservatives "who don't like the war in Iraq, who don't like taxpayer dollars wasted, and who don't like the Patriot Act and who treasure their rights of privacy."

"If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up," Nader added.

Pakistan Blocks YouTube Video Access

By SADAQAT JAN – 7 hours ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan's government has banned access to the video-sharing Web site YouTube because of anti-Islamic movies that users have posted on the site, an official said Sunday.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told the country's 70 Internet service providers Friday that the popular Web site would be blocked until further notice.

The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a movie trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has said he plans to release an anti-Quran movie portraying the religion as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

The PTA official, who asked not to be identified because he was not an official spokesman, said the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority also blocks Web sites that show controversial drawings of the Prophet Muhammad. The drawings were originally printed in European newspapers in 2006 and were reprinted by some papers last week.

The PTA urged Web users to write to YouTube and request the removal of the objectionable movies, saying authorities would stop blocking the site once that happened.

Pakistan is not the only country to have blocked access to YouTube.

In January, a court in Turkey blocked the site because some video clips allegedly insulted the country's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It is illegal to insult Ataturk in Turkey.

Last spring the Thai government banned the site for about four months because of clips seen as offensive to Thailand's revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Moroccans last year were unable to access YouTube after users posted videos critical of Morocco's treatment of the people of Western Sahara, a territory Morocco took control of in 1975.

U.S. Ends Protections for Wolves in 3 States

“Wolves are back,” said Lynn Scarlett, the deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior, in a telephone conference call with reporters. “Gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains are thriving and no longer need protection.”

A coalition of wildlife and environmental groups dismissed the government’s claims and announced plans for a lawsuit to reverse the decision, which is to take effect next month.

Advocates for the animals said there were too few wolves to make a genetically sound population, and that state plans to manage wolf populations were underfinanced and fueled by a long-simmering animosity against wolves that could drive them back to threatened status.

“The numbers are inadequate and the state programs are, too,” said Louisa Willcox, a senior wildlife advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a conservation group that is participating in the planned lawsuit.

From a base population of 66 wolves introduced into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in the mid-1990s, there are now nearly 1,300, with an additional 230 or so in Montana that have drifted down from Canada. State management plans allow for wolf hunting, or outright eradication in some places — including most of Wyoming — with a target population of 150 in each of the three states.

Biologists cited by the environmental and wildlife groups say that target population is too small, and suggest instead that 2,000 to 3,000 animals are the minimum needed.

Gray wolves were first protected in 1974, one of the first animals to be covered by the Endangered Species Act, which was passed a year earlier. But it turned out there were none left to protect across most of the West. That led to the idea of reintroduction, which began in 1995.

“We’re not at recovery yet,” said Doug Honnold, the managing attorney at the Northern Rockies office of Earthjustice, a nonprofit legal group based in Oakland, Calif. “We’re in the neighborhood, we’re close, but we’re not there.”

Removing federal protections now, Mr. Honnold said, would violate the language of the Endangered Species Act that requires decision makers to use the best possible science in determining a viable target population.

Federal officials said their science was sound.

“Wolves are resilient, and their social structure is resilient,” said Ed Bangs, the gray wolf recovery coordinator for the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. Mr. Bangs said that even with federal protections in place almost one in four wolves die each year, either naturally or from human action, and yet the population has still been rising at a rate of about 24 percent a year.

The director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, H. Dale Hall, said that if the population dipped below the state’s pledged management levels, federal monitoring would be extended and other options explored as well, including a restoration of protection.

Environmentalists said those provisions were too vague to affect what the states do in the next few crucial months.

But people’s perceptions of wolves are also changing. Wealthy second-home owners, recreation enthusiasts and retirees began moving into the corridor of communities around Yellowstone about the same time as the wolves did.

Even in Wyoming, which has the harshest measures in place for controlling wolves, a majority of residents who spoke up during a public comment period on the state’s plan opposed it, according to an analysis by the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish.