Cuban President Raul Castro says he will not seek another five year term after the one he’s starting Sunday ends.
He has tapped 52-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel as his top deputy, ready to assume the presidency without any disruption.
Castro says the country has reached a “transcendent” moment in which it is ready to start transferring responsibility and power to a younger generation.
DIaz-Canel is the first high-level government official under Cuba’s current Communist rule who did not take part in the 1959 revolution. It’s worth noting that Raul Castro is 81, who, while younger than his 86-year-old brother Fidel, is nonetheless probably not in a spot to keep running after the current term.
Guess what? In three months, Cubans will be allowed to travel abroad without a permit. Currently, residents of the island nation have to obtain a costly permission slip from the state in order to travel overseas, and are allowed to spend less than a year total off Cuban soil. However, the foreign ministry announced today that the permit requirement will be eliminated within 90 days, and Cubans will now be permitted to spend two years abroad. (Photo: AP). source
» A rare meeting: Raul made the suggestion at a meeting of the Communist Party Congress — the first get-together of the organization in 14 years. Raul said the country needed the changes to encourage a ”systematic rejuvenation of the whole chain of party and administrative posts.” Let’s face it, Raul Castro (the 79-year-old younger brother) isn’t going to live forever. No word on what his brother thinks of this.
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