I respect all religions even though I do not profess them. Human beings, from the most ignorant to the wisest, are looking for an explanation for their own existence.

Science is continuously trying to explain the laws that govern the universe.  At this moment you can see it is expanding, a process that began approximately 13.7 billion years ago.

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 19, 2012
3:50 p.m.

The things that the yogi can do with the human body escape our imagination.  They are right  there, before our eyes, in the images that reach us immediately from a long distance through  the TV program Pasaje a lo Desconocido (Passage to the Unknown).

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 18, 2012
2:40 p.m.

The conditions have been created for the country to start the mass production of moringa oleifera and mulberry, which are inexhaustible sources of meat; milk and eggs; silk fibres that can be spun using traditional methods and also allow for the creation of jobs that can be performed in the shade and are appropriately remunerated, regardless of age or sex.

Fidel Castro Ruz

June 17, 2012

2:55 p.m.

Some days ago, on May 28, the violent battle waged at El Uvero was commemorated with well deserved references. An elemental duty forces me to clarify the facts.

During those weeks, Manuel Piñeiro, “Red Beard”, as the leopard, who never changes its spots, as the saying goes, managed to send to Santiago de Cuba a truckload of weapons that were associated to the attack against the Presidential Palace by the Revolutionary Directorate.  Somehow he had managed to take hold of them.  Frank País, who was the national actions
chief of our “26 of July Movement”, sent a significant part of that cargo to the troublesome zone of the Sierra Maestra, where our incipient Rebel Army was rising alive from its ashes.

That learning period had been extremely tough. Step by step we started to gain our first victories, through which we were able to increase our strength in weapons and men without suffering any casualty. We were also forced to cope with the dangerous treason perpetrated by Eutimio Guerra,
who had been a rebel peasant until the moment when he yielded to the bountiful offers made by the enemy. Despite all obstacles and with the support of the men and means sent by Frank we began to create the first guerrilla detachment with a vanguard that was headed by Camilo; a
rearguard that was commanded by Efigenio Ameijeiras; the centre forces made up by small platoons and the General Command.  We already had a group of seasoned fighters who had conveniently adapted to the conditions of the theatre of operations when we received a significant cache of weapons that were rescued by “Red Beard” and had been conveyed to us hidden inside some barrels filled with thick grease.

Was it correct, from the military and revolutionary points of view, to attack the entrenched and well armed garrison close to the seashore, in the same place used to ship the timber extracted from that area? Why did we do so?

It so happened that at that time, on the month of May, the “Corynthia” expedition had already landed, headed by Calixto Sánchez White.  A strong feeling of solidarity made us launch the attack against the military garrison at El Uvero.

In full honesty I should say that the decision adopted, leaving out the merit of the solidarity it entailed wasn’t in the least correct.  Our role, which prevailed over any other goal, just as had been the case throughout our entire revolutionary life, was not in accordance with that
decision.

I remember the first gunshot I made with the telescopic sight rifle that I had, aiming to the radio communication equipment of the garrison.  After that shot, tens of bullets were fired against the enemy command post.  That was why the adversary did not know that its garrison was under
attack. Thus, at least for three hours neither bombs nor shells were shot against us, something that usually happened, without exception, hardly 20 minutes after the beginning of every battle. Without the presence of these factors, it was quite likely that this decision, which was only inspired by solidarity, would have reduced our troops of almost one hundred veterans, in which case we would have had to go through the same hazardous journey all over again, something that would have been for us the best case scenario.

It was under such circumstances that Almeida was shot in the chest; he was spared from a far more serious wound thanks to something made of metal that he was carrying in his pocket, as he remembered.  Guillermo García, wearing a helmet he found for himself in the first combat, waged a hard-fought battle with the defender of a fort made of thick logs.  Che, who was shooting with a machine gun that usually got jammed, left his position in order to engage those who were fighting Almeida.  And Raúl moved on with his small platoon to fight the soldiers who entrenched
themselves among the piles of logs that were ready for shipment.  All this happened before the fighter bombers came into the scene.  Julio Díaz, a courageous fighter who was shooting with a tripod, could not advance any further.  He was lying by my side with a deadly gunshot in his forehead.

Is there a better understanding now about what happened on May 28, 1957, 55 years ago?

Fidel Castro Ruz

June 1st, 2012

4:36 p.m.

The filmed scenes of the massacre in Libya, starting to be seen, offend for their total absence of humanism and the crass lies that served as an excuse for invading and taking over the natural resources of that country.

With more than 25,000 combat missions, NATO air forces backed up the monstrous crime.
They stated that the Libyan government had funds abroad exceeding 200 billion dollars. At this time, nobody knows where the money is nor what has been done with it.

A fraudulent electoral process ensured the overthrowing of the presidency of the most powerful country on the side of George W. Bush, an alcoholic without medical treatment nor the most basic ethical principles, who ordered West Point graduates to be ready to attack without warning 60 or more dark corners of the world.

Such a deranged person, with the use of a small black briefcase, could decide on the use of thousands of nuclear weapons; with a minimal percentage of these, he could put an end to human life on the planet.

It is sad to remember that on the opposite side of the Yankee super-power, another deranged person, with three bottles of vodka in his stomach, declared the disintegration of the USSR and the dismantling of more than 400 nuclear bases in whose range were all the military bases threatening that country.

Those events did not constitute any surprise. Throughout many years of struggle, experience garnered, contact with events, ideas and historical processes did not come as a surprise.
Today the Russian leaders are trying to rebuild this powerful State which had been created with so much effort and sacrifice.

When Pope John Paul II visited our country in 1998, more than once before his arrival I talked about several subjects with one or another of his envoys. I especially remember the occasion when we sat down to dinner in a small room in the Palace of the Revolution with Joaquín Navarro Valls, Papal spokesman, sitting in front of me. To the right was a pleasant and intelligent priest who had come with the spokesman and assisted Pope John Paul II at the Masses.

Curious about the details, I asked Navarro Valls whether he thought that the immense sky with its millions of stars had been made to please the inhabitants of the earth whenever we deigned to look upwards on any given night. “Absolutely” ?he replied. “It is the only inhabited planet in the universe”.

I then turned to the priest and said: what do you think of that, Father? He replied: “In my opinion, there is a 99.9 percent possibility of intelligent life existing on some other planet”. The answer did not violate any religious principle. Mentally I multiplied the figure, who knows how many times. It was the kind of answer that I deemed to be correct and serious.

Afterwards, that noble priest was always friendly with our country. Sharing a friendship does not mean you have to share beliefs.

Today, on Thursday, as it happens with increasing frequency, a European entity with well-known solvency in the subject, textually states:

“There could be billions of planets not much larger than the Earth orbiting around weak stars in our galaxy, according to an international team of astronomers.

“This estimated number of ‘super-Earths’ -planets with up to ten times Earth’s mass – is based on detections already made and then extrapolated to include the population of the so-called ‘dwarf stars’ in the Milky Way.”

“‘Our new observations with HARPS show that around 40% of the red dwarf stars have a 'super-Earth' orbiting around it in its habitable zone, where there may be water in a liquid state on the surface of the planet’, stated Xavier Bonfils, team leader at the Sciences of the Universe Observatory in Grenoble, France.

‘“Due to the fact that the red dwarfs are so common – there are around 160 billion of them in the Milky Way – this brings us to the surprising results that there are tens of millions of those planets in our galaxy alone’.”

“Their studies suggest that there are ‘super-Earths’ in habitable zones in 41% of the cases, with a range of 28 to 95%.

“‘40% of the red dwarf stars have a 'super-Earth' orbiting them in their habitable zone, where water in its liquid state may exist’.”

“That leads to the obvious question about whether any of those planets may not only be habitable but may also have life.”

“But these stars are prone to stellar eruptions, that can wash over the neighbouring planets with X-rays or ultra-violet radiation, making it less likely that life may exist there.

“‘We have an idea about how to find traces of life on those planets’, stated Stephane Udry, researcher at the Observatory of Geneva.”

“‘If we are able to see traces of elements related to life such as oxygen in that light, then we can obtain indications about whether there is life on that planet’.”

Simply reading these news items shows the possibility and the necessity we have of enriching our knowledge which today is fragmented and scattered.

Perhaps it takes us to more critical positions on the superficiality with which we deal with cultural and material problems. I have not the slightest doubt that our world is changing much more quickly than we are capable of imagining.

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 29, 2012

HAVANA, Cuba.- In order to give an idea of the potential of the USSR in its efforts to maintain parity with the United States in this sphere, we only need to point out that when its disintegration occurred in 1991, in Byelorussia there were 81 nuclear warheads, in Kazakhstan 1400 and in the Ukraine approximately 5000;

On March 9th this year, under the title of "NATO, War, Lies and Business", I published  a new Reflection about the role of that warlike organization.

I am taking a brief pause in my political analyses to dedicate this space to the exploits of our Cuban athletes at the Sixteenth Pan-American Games.

When in 1976 the most serious acts of terrorism against Cuba took place, especially the destruction of a Cuban airliner in mid-flight that had taken off from Barbados with 73 persons onboard – including pilots, flight attendants and auxiliary personnel who were providing their noble services on that airline, the complete youth team that had obtained all the gold medals that were being contested at the Central American and Caribbean Fencing Championship, passengers from Cuba and other countries who were travelling full of confidence in that plane

Yesterday I spoke about the time when Venezuela was an ally of the US empire and the country where Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch carried out their plans for the brutal in-flight bombing of a Cuban plane that caused the death and disappearance of all people aboard, including the youth fencing team that had just won all the gold medals at the Central-American and Caribbean Championships held in Venezuela.