End of era in Cuba as Castro hands torch to Diaz-Canel

Court rejects Lula’s latest appeal

HAVANA, April 19, (AFP): Cuba was poised for the end of an era on Thursday as President Raul Castro stepped down, formally handing power to his long-time deputy Miguel Diaz-Canel — and thereby ending his family’s six-decade grip on the island.

The silver-haired Diaz-Canel, 57 — a top Communist Party figure who has served as first vicepresident since 2013 — will become the island’s first leader born after the 1959 revolution, and the first in 60 years who is not named Castro.

Between them, father of the nation Fidel and his younger brother Raul made the Caribbean island a key player in the Cold War and helped keep communism afloat despite the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Raul, now 86, has been in power since 2006, when he took over after illness sidelined Fidel, who seized power in the revolution.

Diaz-Canel, who has spent years climbing the party ranks, was named the sole candidate for the presidency on Wednesday.

Diaz-Canel

Lula’s latest appeal rejected:

A Brazilian court on Wednesday turned down ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s latest appeal against his 12-year sentence for corruption, seemingly putting his bid for a political comeback even farther out of reach.

The court in Porto Alegre tweeted that it had unanimously turned down the appeal, which was of a technical nature and, even if successful, would not have changed Lula’s guilty verdict.

Lula was imprisoned on April 7 to begin his sentence for accepting a seaside apartment as a bribe from the OAS construction company, which was seeking contracts with state-controlled oil major Petrobras.

Lula says he has been framed in order to prevent him from running in October’s presidential election. He currently leads in the opinion polls.

Venezuela, Spain to restore envoys:

Venezuela and Spain said on Wednesday they would normalize relations and restore ambassadors after a spat in January that followed European Union sanctions against the South American nation.

President Nicolas Maduro in January withdrew his envoy to Madrid in response to what he called “repeated meddling” in the country’s internal affairs, leading Spain to respond in kind.

The two countries “agreed to begin a process of normalizing diplomatic relations,” they said in a joint statement, adding that ambassadors would be restored in the coming days.

6 Mexican police, 10 suspects killed:

Six police and 10 suspected criminals were killed in two apparently related shootouts in the violent Mexican state of Guerrero, authorities said Wednesday.

Gunmen armed with AK-47s opened fire on a state police patrol in the first incident, which happened Tuesday evening outside the small town of Coacoyul, near the Pacific coast resort of Zihuatananejo, the state government said.

“The officers returned fire and repelled the attack, in an exchange that lasted about 30 minutes. Ten suspected criminals were killed,” state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez said in a statement.

Ecuador

opens

Correa

probe:

Ecuador’s state prosecutors’ office said on Wednesday that it had opened an investigation of former president Rafael Correa and 10 former officials for alleged mismanagement of public debt during the last five years of his administration.

“There were irregularities in the use of public debt in the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Central Bank of Ecuador, the National Planning Secretariat and other institutions (...) between Jan 1, 2012 and May 24, 2017,” the prosecutors’ office said in a statement.