Is this the beginning of the end of an era in Cuba?
Castro has terminal cancer: report
Time magazine reports ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro is believed to have terminal cancer and is unlikely to return to power.
It reports many US officials are now convinced Mr Castro has terminal cancer and will never retake the reins of the Americas' only communist-ruled country.
The rumours have emerged despite remarks by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque on Wednesday that Mr Castro "continues to recover [and] we will have him back leading the revolution".
The 80-year-old Cuban leader handed over the presidency for the first time in almost five decades to his brother Raul Castro, 75, who has long been Cuba's defence chief, after undergoing intestinal surgery in July.
He has largely remained out of the public spotlight since then.
Time.com notes the intelligence reports on Castro's health could be wrong.
But reporter Tim Burger, one of the article's authors, told CNN television: "There have been lots of rumours over the decades about Castro's health. This time, there's specificity and they attribute credibility to the reports".
This is a widely talked about topic especially since Saddam was captured and recently hanged. I have read posts by both Vercordious and Boomslanger on another thread.... http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/b-newsintpolitics/m-1132120254/s-45/ post 53 and 54 which raise the issue of dictators, despots and tyrants of this modern so called enlightened era. I have created this thread so we can all have a say regarding modern day and past tyrannical leaders of the world.
There is this really terrible and erroneous thing many are doing in justifying the invasion of Iraq in that they attempt to grade dictators and autocratic rulers by evilness.
Saddam = 1 Hu Jintao = 65
It goes, "Saddam Hussein was the most evil dictator in the world so America and the COW were justified in lying to invade his country to get rid of him. Hu Jintao, though a vicious autocratic ruler who along with his predecessors has oppressed, tortured and killed more, is not evil because he trades and deals with the West (well with Western industry)".
No mention of really evil autocratic leaders like Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, who fully supported by the US, makes Saddam look like a kindergarten despot. Of course oil is involved and one big US oil company.
I will add more to this conversation later but there is a CIA World Factbook that is freely available on the net, https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html and if you do some looking you can find the current list of dictators.
There is a common theme throughout and that is America's support for dictators, some of the worst in the modern era and the US's role in bringing down legitimate democratically elected governments to replace them with autocratic rule, mainly because the democratic government was anti-American (they have interfered in Australian politics for the same reason).
The thread throughout is oil or America's big business interests. Read "100 Years of Regime Change" by Steve Kinzer. Did you know that the US militarily deposed the legitimate king of Hawaii and turned that country into a US State because the king kicked out a US sugar baron who was exploiting Hawaiian workers and destroying the environment?
If you really want to get an insight into dictators and America's support for them, read the harrowing true story by Sister Dianna Ortiz called the Blindfold's Eyes and the subsequent campaign by the US to belittle and silence her (http://www.maryknoll.org/MALL/ORBIS/ortiz_memoir.htm).
Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.
Correct me if I'm wrong about this (I was never good at history), but Saddam was tried and executed for crimes he commited 20 years ago.... now didn't he have U.S. backing back then?
The U.S seems to overlook atrocities from countries that have it's backing until they decide to withdraw support (for whatever reason). Then it's all about human rights and WMDs.
Making a deal with them is like making a deal with the devil, but what choice do the less powerful countries have when all the large Western countries seem to be wedged up the U.S.A's arse.
In heaven, there are no interesting people - Nietzsche
The U.S seems to overlook atrocities from countries that have it's backing until they decide to withdraw support (for whatever reason). Then it's all about human rights and WMDs.
With Saddam though it is more that Saddam withdrew from the US than the US pulling support for Saddam. If Saddam had kept playing the US's game and continued to give them Iraq's cheap oil in US dollars (oil traded in native dollars is extremely important in the scheme of things for a country in massive debt like America) then to this day Rumsfeld would still be making his regular visits to Iraq to shake Saddam's hand and to give him billions in military aid.
The moment Saddam stopped doing what the US wanted and doing what he wanted (invading Kuwait for stealing his oil for one thing), that was the moment America turned. Remember before he fell out of favour with the US Saddam was the most secular Arab country in the region with Christian ministers. He also had some of the most progressive women's rights and pro-female policies in the world (he had better maternity and family provisions than Howard has). Also Iraq had the most advanced and progressive universities in the region.
Also remember that nearly all of Saddam's worst atrocities were done under the full support of America who even covered up his gassing of the Kurds at Halabja. That last is on the record btw with the CIA at the time coming out with press releases and saying the Kurds were gassed by Iran. It was this support and covering up for Saddam that made Saddam think he could do anything he wanted and get away with it.
In this world America only does what is good for America, noone else comes into the equation, except to be used and discarded as necessary. Ask Tony Blair and the terrible way he has been treated by Bush, whilst being Bush's staunchest ally and then daring to speak out on occasion against the US. Howard on the other hand couldn't be more subservient and sycophantic so he gets thrown little crumbs like Hicks every now and again, but make no mistake if our government ever spoke against US policy we would dumped on big time. Even though our government kow tows and boot licks to the US like no other nation on earth we are still shat upon in trade, business, environment and other matters by the US.
Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.
Also remember that nearly all of Saddam's worst atrocities were done under the full support of America who even covered up his gassing of the Kurds at Halabja. That last is on the record btw with the CIA at the time coming out with press releases and saying the Kurds were gassed by Iran. It was this support and covering up for Saddam that made Saddam think he could do anything he wanted and get away with it.
Maybe that's why the U.S. wanted him dead so quickly. Before anyone started trying him for his other crimes and realising that he had FULL U.S. backing.
9/11 was a tragic event, but it looks like no one learnt from it. Not to mention, everyone's forgotten about the man said to be responsible for it.
It's very interesting you bring that up because the trial continued on in Iraq today with Saddam's chair empty of course, but his half brothers and others still facing charges. What got my attention was that all the other charges against Saddam, including the killing of 180 Kurds the Americans knew about at the time but covered up, were dropped by the judge and no further investigation is to be conducted into them.
They are charging the others on specific incidents that cannot be tied to the America.
Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.
. . . all the other charges against Saddam, including the killing of 180 Kurds the Americans knew about at the time but covered up, were dropped . . . .
It was 'generous' of them to drop the charges . . (now we know why lawyers are regarded as parasites) . . there were probably a team of them got paid to argue that point.
I will be out of the country for the first 12 days of BB . how clever am I ! Smart enough to leave the 'dead-heads' behind
Fidel Castro, one of the longest reigning Dictators the world has ever seen, is apparently on his death bed. Although, typical of communist countries, that is a matter of dispute. Of all the 'famous and/or infamous' people in the world he is the one I would most want to meet.
Castro battling for his life, says Chavez January 21, 2007
Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro is fighting for his life, his friend and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said.
"He's back in Sierra Maestra and locked in a battle for his life," said Mr Chavez, referring to Dr Castro's legendary guerilla war that toppled Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and ushered in his Cuban Revolution.
"There are those who want Fidel to die," Mr Chavez said, alluding to a recent Spanish press report that Dr Castro, 80, was gravely ill following three failed operations.
"But I spoke to him a few days ago ... We trust he will recover completely," Mr Chavez told the Rio de Janeiro state legislature on Friday.
Mr Chavez has visited Dr Castro and often speaks to him by telephone.
There has been mounting speculation over the condition of Dr Castro, who has not been seen in public since being taken ill in late July.
Last week, a US intelligence chief said Dr Castro was terminally ill and might have only days to live.
"I don't know when he's going to die," said Mr Chavez.
"I hope he lives another 80 years, I hope he lives another 100 years, but Fidel Castro is one of those men who will never die."
"He's like Che Guevara, the immortal Che," the leftist president said, in reference to the legendary guerilla leader and Dr Castro's right-hand who was killed in Bolivia in 1967.
After intestinal surgery, Dr Castro transferred power temporarily to his 75-year-old brother Raul, who is defence minister, and the Cuban Government since then has made his health a state secret.
Mr Chavez was in Rio de Janeiro to attend a two-day summit of the Mercosur trade bloc, of which Venezuela is a member along with Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay.
Meanwhile, the Spanish doctor who examined Dr Castro last month said his health was improving and again dismissed as alarmist reports in the media.
Spanish newspaper El Pais had reported on Wednesday what it said were fresh details about Castro's condition, saying the treatment he had been given had triggered serious complications.
Mugabe won't loosen grip on power By Andrew Geoghegan
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has marked his 83rd birthday by slapping a ban on political rallies and announcing he has no intention of relinquishing power. With Zimbabwe on the verge of becoming a failed state the Government has to contend with growing unrest.
But Mr Mugabe is intent on suppressing any dissent and has imposed a three month ban on political rallies and protests.
This follows a weekend of violent clashes between police and opposition supporters.
Zimbabwe's leader has also made it clear to members of his own party that he has no intention of loosening his grip on power, despite ruling the country for the past 27 years
My comment: It matters not what HIS intentions are . . he is 83!! . . but he might find somebody else has an opinion on this . . *stands back before lightening hits*
I will be out of the country for the first 12 days of BB . how clever am I ! Smart enough to leave the 'dead-heads' behind
Mugabe is a ruthless dictator and it is unfortunate for these wonderful people that they don’t have any oil supplies of note, otherwise JWH would have us there right now in the shadow of the US fighting for “democracy”.
Mugabe is a ruthless dictator and it is unfortunate for these wonderful people that they don’t have any oil supplies of note, otherwise JWH would have us there right now in the shadow of the US fighting for “democracy”.
You dont need oil for the left to come out chanting no war .If we were to go in tomorrow they would say its another example of the white man trying to impose his will on the people of Africa. I think hardship is only just beginning for the people of Zimbabwe.
You dont need oil for the left to come out chanting no war .If we were to go in tomorrow they would say its another example of the white man trying to impose his will on the people of Africa. I think hardship is only just beginning for the people of Zimbabwe.
Did you completely misconstrue what tramp stated, which is actually based on truth. The way I understand his post (which has nothing to do with the left, which has nothing to do with anti-war sentiment, confusing, don't know what you are getting at there?), is that nowadays it takes a country to have oil for the US to go in and "free" it from tyranny, all other countries can continue to suffer.
Btw there are as many right wing anti-war protesters as there are left wing. The hate of war is not restricted to any ideological outlook. So I gather from your post you love war and believe it is the solution for all of mankind's injustices?
Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.
So I gather from your post you love war and believe it is the solution for all of mankind's injustices?
Dont like war at all, I was clearly making the point that if sometimes the only option is to fight there is certain elements of the community that will always blindly protest no matter what the circumstance.
You make it sound like I sit in my cellar watching enter the dragon on a virtual loop preparing for the final battle of good versus evil. Im just a normal fella with a normal job that enjoys a lot of the same things you do. Just because you probably work at DSTO or something like that doesnt make you righteous about every world issue.
Dont like war at all, I was clearly making the point that if sometimes the only option is to fight there is certain elements of the community that will always blindly protest no matter what the circumstance.
You make it sound like I sit in my cellar watching enter the dragon on a virtual loop preparing for the final battle of good versus evil. Im just a normal fella with a normal job that enjoys a lot of the same things you do. Just because you probably work at DSTO or something like that doesnt make you righteous about every world issue.
How was going to war on Iraq by using lies and deceit justified?
Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.
Assassination, commonly used by America foreign services would have been an option. But, the removal of Saddam was not the agenda - occupying Iraq was.
*I'm not justifying assassination here, I'm merely making a point on options.
The debacle that is playing out in Pakistan and the way Musharraf has abused his position made me draw parallels between the way our own little democratic-dictator Howard has done similar.
Imran Khan has been charged with terrorism and faces the death penality for protesting against the Government. Howard's sedition laws allow his Government to arrest anyone that protests against the Government, and various censorship laws it has passed severely limits what the media is able to print. Fearing the Supreme Court would remove him as President, Musharraf sacked the judges, declared emergency rule and imposed martial law. Any attempts made at exposing the Howard Government's mistakes or corruption are quickly blocked by the Government, senior public servants are gagged or sacked and access to information (through FOI) is blocked, Children Overboard and AWB Weapons-For-Wheat are examples.
Obviously you cannot compare a military dictator to John Howard, but if you look at their behaviour you can see just how far the Howard Government has strayed from real democracy and how close they are coming to a 'democratic' version of dictatorship.
"Democratic Dictatorship": The illusion of democracy, where the Government makes people believe they are free of Government interference in their lives, free of Government censorship and free of Government lies and corruption.
Ex-President Suharto is near death. For almost 2 weeks he has been on the brink but somehow rallies and is still in the land of the living. On the weekend when Suharto was on his death bed with no hope of recovery this was the headlines in The Australian Newspaper.
Quoted Text
FOREIGN leaders, senior politicians and family members queued up to pay their last respects to Suharto at the weekend as the former Indonesian dictator, who for 32 years dominated the world's largest Muslim nation, teetered on the verge of death.
Please tell me how anyone in their right minds could/should pay their respects to a man such as this?
Excerpt from http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23046609-25837,00.html The Indonesian Government brought a civil case against Mr Suharto and one of his foundations recently, accusing him of stealing $US441 million from state institutions between 1978 and 1998, when he was driven from power by a popular uprising.
After he came to power in 1965, following a mysterious coup against president Sukarno, an estimated 500,000 Indonesians were killed in massacres by alleged communists, carried out with the tacit approval of Mr Suharto.
Then there was the invasion and occupation of East Timor, where an further 200,000 people were thought to have died from war and deprivation, and the long-running independence war in Aceh.
The Government's estimate of the loot amassed by Mr Suharto and his cronies is modest compared with that of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International, which in 2004 placed his total takings at $US35 billion, more than that of the late Ferdinand Marcos of The Philippines or Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Growing resentment at such corruption, combined with the effects of the Asian financial crisis, precipitated his sudden fall in May 1998 and the restoration of democracy.
Despite half-hearted efforts at prosecution by subsequent governments, Mr Suharto was never brought to justice. A series of judges accepted his lawyers' claims that he was too sick and mentally enfeebled to stand trial.
However, Mr Suharto so dominated his people during three decades in power that even to those who fought against his oppression, the thought of sending him to jail would have been a kind of parricide.
Throughout his period in power, Mr Suharto was supported by Western governments that regarded him as a bulwark against communism in Southeast Asia. Among his own people, he encouraged the belief that he possessed supernatural powers.
The Times, AFP, Reuters
more info on this dictator of the recent past http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suharto
The following is an article written by Paul Keating ex-Primeminister of Australia.
The nation builder February 2, 2008
Australia's postwar history would have been very different but for the former Indonesian president, writes former prime minister Paul Keating.
The death of Soeharto, the former president of Indonesia, gives all Australians a chance to assess the value of his life and the relationship between Indonesia and Australia.
More than any figure in the post-Second World War period, including any American president, Soeharto, by his judgment, goodwill and good sense, had the greatest positive impact on Australia's strategic environment and, hence, on its history.
In the 40 years since he came to power in 1965, Indonesia has been the ballast in South-East Asian stability and the foundation stone upon which ASEAN was built.
Soeharto took a nation of 120 million people, racked by political turmoil and poverty, from near-disintegration to the orderly, ordered and prosperous state that it is today.
In 1965, countries such as Nigeria and Zimbabwe were in the same position as Indonesia then. Today, those countries are economic and social wrecks. By contrast, Indonesia is a model of harmony, cohesion and progress. And the principal reason for that is Soeharto.
We can only imagine what Australia's strategic position would be like if Indonesia's 230 million people degenerated into a fractured, lawless state reminiscent of Nigeria or Zimbabwe.
For the past 40 years, we have been spending roughly 2 per cent of gross domestic product on defence - about $20 billion a year in today's dollars. The figure would be more like seven to eight times that, about $150 billion today, if Indonesia had become a fractured, politically stricken state.
Had Soeharto's New Order government not displaced the Soekarno government and the massive PKI communist party, the postwar history of Australia would have been completely different. A communist-dominated Indonesia would have destabilised Australia and all of South-East Asia.
So why have Australians regarded Indonesia so suspiciously, especially over the past quarter-century, when it is evident that Indonesia has been at the fulcrum of our strategic stability?
Unfortunately, I think the answer is East Timor and the wilful reporting of Indonesian affairs in Australia by the Australian media.
That media have, in the main, been the Fairfax press and the ABC. Most particularly The Sydney Morning Herald and to a lesser extent The Age.
This rancour, and the misrepresentation of the true state of Indonesian social and economic life, can be attributed to the "get square" policy of the media in Australia for the deaths of the Balibo Five - the five Australian-based journalists who were encouraged to report from a war zone by their irresponsible proprietors and who were shot and killed by the Indonesian military in East Timor.
This event was sheeted back to Soeharto by journalists of the broadsheet press. From that moment, in their eyes, Soeharto became a cruel and intolerant repressor whose life's work in saving Indonesia from destruction was to be viewed only through the prism of East Timor.
Rarely did journalists mention that Soeharto was president for almost 10 years before he did anything about East Timor. He was happy to leave the poverty-stricken and neglected enclave in his archipelago to Portugal, with its 300-year history of hopeless colonisation. Soeharto had enough trouble dragging Indonesia from poverty without needing to tack on another backward province.
But in mid-1975, communist-allied military officers took control in Portugal and its colonies abroad were taken over by avowedly Marxist regimes. In East Timor, a leftist group calling itself the Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of East Timor, or Fretilin, staged a coup igniting a civil war.
It's Mugabe or death, voters told Chris McGreal in Harare April 22, 2008
ZIMBABWE'S Health Minister armed himself with a Kalashnikov and threatened to kill opposition supporters forced to attend a political meeting unless they voted for Robert Mugabe in a second round of the presidential election, witnesses say.
The accounts of the incident involving David Parirenyatwa - and witness reports of other forced meetings at which ZANU-PF MPs and senior military officers oversaw the beating of people who voted against Mr Mugabe in last month's elections - establish a direct link between the highest levels of the ruling party and what the opposition Movement for Democratic Change is calling a "war" against the people.
An affidavit made before a commissioner of oaths by an opposition activist names Dr Parirenyatwa, along with a deputy minister and other senior ruling party officials, as threatening to kill MDC supporters.
"[They] came to Musama business centre in Murewa and threatened MDC supporters with death if they 'revote' MDC in the anticipated election rerun," the affidavit says. "Shops were forced to close down; people were forced to attend the ZANU-PF rally."
On Sunday electoral officials announced a delay in the partial recount of the disputed March 29 election. The delay increased opposition concern about possible vote-rigging by ZANU-PF.
The recount could overturn the results of the parliamentary election, which showed ZANU-PF losing its majority to the MDC for the first time. Results of the parallel presidential election have not been made public, but the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, now in exile in South Africa, says he won.
A run-off election will be called if the recount shows that neither side won at least 50 per cent of the presidential vote.
Dr Parirenyatwa's meeting, on April 10, came as ZANU-PF began what has become an extensive campaign of beatings and intimidation in areas where Mr Mugabe and the ruling party lost ground in the presidential and parliamentary elections.
In the following days, party militias and the army established torture camps in several provinces, where they took MDC members to extract the names of opposition activists and deter the opposition from campaigning before the expected run-off election.
Mobs loyal to Mr Mugabe have forced about 3000 people to flee their homes. Victims are coming to the capital, Harare, seeking safety and medical treatment.
Chingatayi Chimomo, 13, was separated from his parents when a ZANU-PF gang burned down his home, 200 kilometres north-east of Harare. His father, John, was an MDC parliamentary candidate.
"We ran into the forest and saw about 50 people burning our house down and taking all our things," the boy said. "My father … told us to run away and he ran away to another place.
"It was midnight, a lot of people came and two had guns, and they put fire and broke everything and they took all our property. My father knows I am here but I don't know when we will go home. There is nothing left at home."
Chingatayi was safe on Sunday in a Harare hospital. The staff will not send him away, even though wards are overflowing with victims of Mr Mugabe's thugs.
A spokesman for the MDC, Nelson Chamisa, said 10 opposition supporters had been murdered since the election and hundreds assaulted.
"I can confirm that 10 of our members have died, four of them in the last few days, due to political violence perpetrated by ruling party supporters in the aftermath of the elections," Mr Chamisa said.
Amid mounting regional concern about instability and bloodshed, the 53-member African Union urged Zimbabwe to release the election results immediately, and called for restraint from all parties.
Guardian News and Media; Reuters; Telegraph, London
If that is the case, then why even hold an election? I see the irony in the so called 'Minister for health' holding a Kalashnikov rifle and threatening people with death.
Mugabe is proving to be a man of his word. . .he promised 'Democratic Elections'. That is precisely what the country got . .
He just left out the bit about the outcome and that he will remain President anyway.
Ain't Democracy grand???
Heres the thing with Zimbabwe. South Africa for years cried foul at apartied and rightfuly so. F.W deKlerk started dismantling this legislation under immense pressure from the international community and most of all African nations.
Now take a country like Zimbabwae. it was considered the food bowl of Africa and look at what Mugabe and ZANU PF party have done to this country and its people. Nobody in Africa seems to care. Mugabe was given a standing ovation by several members in the UN the other week when he dribbled his way through a speech about US and UK imperialists. Kenya was the only African country to express concern.
The UN made a statement that they are very unhappy with Zimbabwe and urged them to have free and fair elections. GUTLESS.
Somethings wrong here, and the UN are letting it happen. Thats why I think the UN security Council is the most useless organisation on the planet. They stood around and watched Rwanda and Darfur destroy themselves and now Zimbabwe.
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