Word: cuba
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There was no surprise, Sunday, when Cuba's parliament elected Raul Castro, 76, to succeed his ailing, 81-year-old brother, Fidel, as President. But pundits who had expected an infusion of youth into Cuba's Paleolithic hierarchy were roundly disappointed. The six vice presidential posts, for example, were taken by a group of men whose average age is 70 - including 77-year-old, hard-line communist ideologue Jose Ramon Machado as First Vice President...
...battled with serious health problems over the past 18 months). As his brother Raúl prepares to officially take the reins next month, many in the international community have reflected on the brutal tyranny of Fidel, and the way in which his problematic policies have left the nation of Cuba often teetering on the brink of collapse. Castro came to power in 1959, ousting the country’s former dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Leading a revolution against the oligarchy that had developed as a result of Batista’s economic policies, Castro initially denied both being a communist...
...Clinton would insist upon a requirement that every American have coverage; Obama would not, though he contends that lowering the cost would make nearly everyone decide to do it. Clinton said she would not sit down with Raul Castro until he had shown clear signs of political reform in Cuba; Obama said he would insist upon preparations, not preconditions. That distinction is hardly likely to sway many people in either Texas or Ohio...
...some cautious hope. Compared with the flamboyantly inflexible Fidel, the beardless and bespectacled Raúl is an earthier, more pragmatic figure, who has nudged his country's ossified economy toward capitalism and encouraged some discussion about liberalizing its repressive politics. That's quite a turnaround for Raúl, who has been Cuba's military chief since Fidel took power in 1959 and was known as his brother's political enforcer, a ruthless ideological hard-liner. But after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's economic benefactor, it was Raúl who persuaded Fidel to permit private agricultural markets and open...
...have the power to fix that dysfunction. Fidel's full-blown retirement "really does free Raúl to do a lot more than he could in the provisional role," says Brian Latell, a Cuba expert at the University of Miami and author of After Fidel. "Now I think we'll see significant changes, not just in style but in policy." Bernardo Benes, a Miami banker and prominent Cuban exile who played soccer with Raúl at the University of Havana and was an emissary to Cuba for Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, agrees: "I do expect him to free himself from...