To celebrate revolutionary leader Fidel Castro’s 90th birthday, a Cuban tobacconist is attempting to break his own world record by rolling a 90-metre cigar.
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True to form, Castro went on to blast Barack Obama, this time for the USA president’s speech in May when he visited Hiroshima, site of the world’s first atomic bombing at the end of World War Two.
“Modern medical techniques have allowed me to scrutinise the universe”, wrote Castro, who stepped down as Cuba’s president 10 years ago after suffering a severe gastrointestinal illness.
In Saturday’s letter, Castro also criticized Obama for not apologizing to the Japanese during his trip to Hiroshima in May, saying his speech there was “lacking stature”.
“I want to express my most profound gratitude for the shows of respect, the greetings and gifts I have received the days, which give me the strength to reciprocate through ideas”, wrote Castro, as reported in Reuters.
Castro went on to reminisce about his youth on the family plantation in the eastern village of Biran, in particular about his father who died before the revolution.
Castro’s birthday was greeted in low-key style by the Cuban government, with no major parades or rallies scheduled to mark the event.
He was last seen in public at the Communist Party Congress in April, looking old and frail but mentally alert and bringing tears to the eyes of some as he acknowledged that time for him was running out.
Castro wrote a sternly worded letter a week after the trip admonishing Mr Obama to read up on Cuban history, declaring that “we don’t need the empire to give us anything”.
Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, who arrived in Havana on Friday night, is scheduled to participate in celebrations, according to Prensa Latina. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Cubans are migrating to the United States, hollowing out the ranks of highly educated professionals.
The island’s brightest economic hopes lie in a post-detente surge in tourism that is expected to boom when commercial flights to and from the United States, Cuba’s longtime enemy, start again August 31.
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Alex Castro, Fidel Castro’s son participates in a photo and audiovisual exhibition called “Fidel” dedicated to Cuban former president Fidel Castro in Havana. The government and its backers laud his nationalism and his construction of a social safety net that provided free housing, education and health care to every Cuban.
