All Blog Posts from World Watch

Ever since Raul Castro became Cuba’s President in February 2008, people—at home and abroad—have been waiting for changes that would improve living conditions on the island. But the changes have been slow coming and there are indications that when they do take place they might not be the ones hoped for.

For three days this week, the official Communist Party daily, Granma, has front-paged statements made in the 1970s and 80s by former President Fidel Castro. They are all variations on the same theme: too many people being employed to do too little, and low productivity as the bane of the economy. He also warned that at some point there would be more university graduates than openings in their fields and that students should view their degrees as an honor but not necessarily as a ticket to a professional career.

Castro’s statement printed last Tuesday focused on “inflated” payrolls. Inside the same newspaper was an article announcing that the Ministry of Agriculture would be cutting thousands of bureaucratic jobs. Twenty-six percent of their employees - 89,000 people - it said, were office workers resulting in an “excess of unproductive personnel.”

Cubans fear that similar layoffs will come in many other sectors of the economy and that Granma’s publication of Fidel Castro’s views—if dated—on the issue are rather like trying to put the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” on what are bound to be unpopular if necessary measures taken by his younger brother Raul.

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For Cubans and others who wonder just how former President Fidel Castro is doing, the answer seems to be much, much better.

Nearly seven minutes of new video released by government-run TV Sunday showed a more robust looking Castro speaking in a firm voice with a group of recently graduated Venezuelan law students, in what the news announcer said was a three-hour meeting.

The video also offers the first full length view of Castro standing unaided seen in a long time. As in previous pictures, Castro, who celebrated his 83rd birthday August 13, is dressed casually in dark pants and a track suit jacket. Underneath he seems to be wearing a white shirt. In most previous photos he appeared to be wearing pajamas under the track suit.

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Former Cuban President Fidel Castro turns 83 Thursday, his birthday defying all predictions of his death. Those predictions escalated in frequency and frenzy following his collapse and intestinal surgery at the end of July 2006.

At exactly midnight, Cuban television interrupted all programming to put on a three-minute photo and video montage of Castro's life, accompanied by patriotic music. Included was a photo from the chest up - said to have been taken this month by one of his sons, Alex Castro - in which he looks quite fit. The photo was also on display among dozens of others of Castro going back to a 1955 shot of him in Central Park, Manhattan. They are part of an exhibit inaugurated in Havana Wednesday evening to honor the bigger-than-life revolutionary.

Also Wednesday, the U.S.-based religious group Pastors for Peace - an anti-embargo organization - released several photos on their Web site of Castro taken, they said, just 13 days ago. Several members of the group, including Harlem Rev. Lucius Walker met with Castro on August 1 in Havana. In the thigh up photo, Castro, wearing a blue baseball cap and a white windbreaker with blue trim, is standing with his arms around his American visitors, wearing a grin and appearing more robust than in earlier photos.

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Cuban President Raul Castro was short on details as he implied difficult economic times were still here for Cubans. The world economic crisis, and particularly a reduction in income from exports, means Cuba cannot meet its projected growth index, Castro told an early Sunday morning rally in the eastern Cuban city of Holguin.

From Havana, CBS News producer Portia Siegelbaum reports that in his short, 34-minute speech at the traditional July 26 rally marking Cuba's Day of National Rebellion (the 1953 armed uprising against the Batista dictatorship that six years later brought his older brother Fidel to power), Raul Castro reiterated the urgent need to increase agricultural production to replace food imports. (At present, Cuba buys 80% of the food it consumes from international suppliers.)

Castro, who stepped in to run the country when Fidel Castro was sidelined by illness in 2006, reiterated his call for more people to return to the land. On July 26, 2007, he had announced a plan to provide free leases to land parcels to those interested in growing fruits and vegetables. That program, he told rally participants, is moving along "satisfactorily."

An expert in U.S.-Cuba relations noted that among the surprising elements of Castro's speech was that, not only did he focus almost exclusively on domestic issues but that — despite the economic hardships facing the island — the U.S. embargo was barely mentioned.

"Instead of blaming the embargo for our problems, he talked about what we have to do to overcome its impact," noted researcher Carlos Alzucaray.

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A Cuban Government overhaul and the replacement of various prominent Ministers announced Monday has taken an even more unexpected turn as former President Fidel Castro weighs in in support of the moves with some startling comments questioning the behavior and motives of two of the top figures in question.

Describing them only as "the two mentioned in the wires as the most affected”, Castro who was sidelined by illness in 2006, writes that the “honey of power, for which they had made no sacrifice, awakened in them ambitions that led them to a shameful role."

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Former Cuban President Fidel Castro is again using the Internet to let the White House know just what concerns Havana.

In an blog posting Wednesday evening, Castro raised a laundry list of Havana’s grievances with Washington going back five decades.

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Former Cuban President Fidel Castro has released another blog post, using the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay and the current Mideast situation as fodder for criticizing President Barack Obama, who Castro had previously praised.

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Cuban President Raul Castro was in Moscow today to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev – the first such visit by a Cuban leader in more than 20 years.

Castro and Medvedev have an extensive agenda on their hands – humanitarian relief supplies, a $20 million loan, and stepping up mutual cooperation in the spheres of trade, science, technology and culture.

But it seemed something else was on Castro's mind when he arrived at the Russian president's residence in Zavidovo, 75 miles northwest of Moscow – something of a gastronomic nature.

Medvedev's staff knew in advance what it was: lard.

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Rumors that Cuban leader Fidel Castro is dead or close to death seem to surface every few months.

But a longtime Castro watcher in the intelligence community says the latest bout of rumors "smells a little different," reports CBS News' David Martin. The source says that they are coming in from so many different places that he gives more credence to them than usual.

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