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Raul Castro gets new five-year term as Cuba’s president, names first vice president

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 22:34:00 +0000

HAVANA (AP) -- Cuba's parliament has named Raul Castro to a new five-year term as president and rising star Miguel Diaz-Canel his first vice president.

The 52-year-old Diaz-Canel is now the first in line to succeed Castro. He is the highest-ranking Cuban official who didn't directly participate in the 1959 Cuban revolution.

The selections were reported by state media Sunday.

Mass exodus in store for Cuba?

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 22:07:00 +0000

HAVANA, Cuba — The predictions of a mass exodus began soon after the Cuban government announced this week it was moving to scrap the odious travel restrictions that have micromanaged the comings and goings of Cubans for more than 50 years.

Since islanders won’t need an “exit permit” to travel anymore — just a passport — many expect a flood of visa applications at foreign embassies once the new policy takes effect Jan. 14.

Maybe so. But probably not.

The reality is that for years the vast majority of Cubans who wanted to travel — and could afford to — were not denied the exit permit to leave the country. More than 30,000 a year emigrate from the island, mostly to the United States. They include the more than 7,000 who arrive illegally, typically across the US-Mexican border or by boat. Any Cuban who reaches US territory is eligible for US residency under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act.

Not first time Arizona governor stopped

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 22:14:00 +0000

What started as a "ridiculous" Border Patrol incident along Interstate 19 in southern Arizona may be spiraling into a full-scale public relations debacle for a border security gone awry. Nearly three weeks after former Arizona Gov. Raúl Castro triggered a checkpoint's radiation security system on June 12, the story of the 96-year-old's brief but disturbing detainment in the brutal Sonoran Desert heat for more than a half-hour has spread from a local newspaper commentary to national news.

But there's more: This was the third time such an incident has happened to Castro, who was elected in 1974 as the first (and only) Mexican American governor of Arizona.

"I've worked on immigration matters all of my life, as an ambassador, a governor and on the border," Castro told me in a phone interview from his home in Nogales, Ariz. "But this was really bad judgment."

An outspoken opponent to Arizona's controversial SB 1070 "papers please" law, Castro recalled the other two times he had to fend off stumbling Border Patrol efforts.