Three New York rescue workers injured in the September 11 attacks got the best treatment Cuba can offer in Michael Moore’s film critique of United States healthcare. The 9/11 responders spent 10 days on the 19th floor of Cuba’s flagship hospital with a view of the Caribbean sea, a sharp contrast to many Cuban hospitals.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Wednesday he was eating enough solid food to recover from several intestinal operations that had not been successful at first. In his most detailed account of his health crisis, Castro said he spent months being fed intravenously, but has recovered his weight to a stable 80kg.
Almost half a century of communist rule has saved Havana’s eclectic architecture from the urban developer’s bulldozer, but a lack of repair has taken a ruinous toll on its neo-Baroque and Art Deco gems. Dozens of colonial buildings and beautiful squares in Old Havana have been restored since the United Nations cultural agency, Unesco, designated it a world heritage site in 1982.
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/ 31 January 2007
State television showed Fidel Castro for the first time in three months on Tuesday and the ailing Cuban leader said he was still in the fight to recover from surgery that forced him to relinquish power last July. Castro (80) looked stronger than he had in a previous video, but still frail, in the images from a two-hour meeting on Monday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
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/ 6 September 2006
Cuban leader Fidel Castro said he has put the worst of his health crisis behind him and will be able to receive foreign dignitaries in private during a summit of the Nonaligned Movement of developing nations next week. Castro (80) said he lost 18,6kg in a few days after undergoing emergency surgery to stop intestinal bleeding caused by an unexpected health problem on July 26.
Tropical Storm Ernesto was moving towards south Florida on Tuesday — the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina — after soaking Cuba with heavy rain. Florida residents lined up for supplies with the approach of Ernesto, which could strengthen over the warm waters of the Florida Straits.
Hurricane Ernesto weakened to a tropical storm after killing at least one person in Haiti on Sunday and forecasters said it could regain hurricane strength as it barreled toward south-eastern Cuba and the Florida Keys. Florida declared a state of emergency and ordered tourists out of the vulnerable Keys as Ernesto brought a reminder of the perils of the Atlantic hurricane season.
Cubans wished Fidel Castro a happy 80th birthday on Sunday even though the ailing leader has not been seen or heard in public since ceding power to his brother two weeks ago after stomach surgery. ”Fidel, Fidel, long live Fidel,” chanted young Cubans at a birthday concert on Havana’s Malecon seafront boulevard where 3 000 gathered.
Cuba’s communist government said on Friday that Raul Castro was firmly in charge of the country but uncertainty over its political future grew as the acting president still did not appear in public. The Granma newspaper provided no new details on the condition of ailing leader Fidel Castro four days after he handed over power temporarily to his brother.
Fidel Castro told his people he was in good spirits and stable after surgery that has raised speculation his illness might be the beginning of the end of his 47-year rule. Days short of his 80th birthday, Castro issued a statement on Tuesday playing down talk he might be at death’s door after an operation to halt stomach bleeding that forced him to temporarily relinquish power to his 75-year-old brother, Raul.