Fidel Castro resigns

[Ellie]

Now I don't know much about the Cold War (I didn't even know Cuba was a part of it, other than being communist, and thought it was a part of mainland South America lol), but I gather this is pretty big news.

Fidel Castro has resigned.

Granted, at 84, he hardly had a big part in the running of Cuba, but still, he's a pretty big face I guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro

http://www.euronews.net/2011/04/19/fide ... to-reform/

(Is a president really a president if he's not elected? I thought that's what the term meant in relation to King or other terms).

 

[Cryranos]

Three years late, sir.

Technically the word doesn't imply any notion of being elected (preside + resident, the citizen who presides), but in today's world it does. He was more of a benevolent dictator than a president, since he was never too mean to his people, and any elections that may have taken place (idk if they have or not) were just for show.

 

[Ellie]

Oh, sorry. I get my news from the homepage of Wikipedia and assumed this was absolutely recent.

I know it's not much of an excuse, but being British I wasn't really taught American history and affairs.

 

[Cryranos]

Even though most people around here were just overreacting, had things gone wrong, the US, Cuba, and Russia would be smoldering piles of radioactive waste, and the world would be Hybrida's paradise.

 

[gRaViJa]

Castro gave his duties to his brother 3 years ago, but he officially resigned as a president last week. Didn't it go like that?

 

[Ellie]

Yeah, I've finally got around to reading about that. I'd heard of the cuban missile crisis but never put two and two together, I never think of nukes as being missile based, more rocket based. I guess it's semantics again and being different countries lol.

 

[Cryranos]

Perhaps. It's not like he's had an active role in Cuba's government since the nineties, anyway.

 

[Ellie]

Are cuban products still banned in America? I know my friend had trouble bringing cigars home a few years back.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

Would the rocket you were thinking of look anything like this? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... 6_ICBM.jpg

ICBMs look like space rockets because they are basically the same, only space rockets have to go higher and through the whole atmosphere :p

(Actually, I think most missiles are rockets anyway, I think most use rocket engines)

 

[Ellie]

Yeah. When I think of a "missile", I normally think of something small an apache fires lol.

 

[Venetia]

Are cuban products still banned in America? I know my friend had trouble bringing cigars home a few years back.

yes. the embargo is federal law now.
we allow humanitarian aid and certain humanitarian products to go FROM the u.s. TO cuba, but it doesn't go the opposite way.

any air travel there has to have special approval, or be routed through mexico/puerto rico/etc.

where i live (tampa, fl) used to be an industrial hub for manufacturing cuban cigars (using cuban tobacco/etc). after the embargo half a century ago, it shut down like half the city. we still have the old, abandoned brick buildings around.

the reasoning given was because of our displeasure with "anti-democratic" power ... but then we owe china an assload of national debt and trade with them like gangbusters.

doesnt really make sense.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

Yeah. When I think of a "missile", I normally think of something small an apache fires lol.

Yeah, the Cuban Missile crisis was about larger missiles, I don't think quite as big as ICBMs, but bigger then like a hellfire or sidewinder or something

 

[united washcloth express]

MRBMs and IRBMs.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

MRBMs and IRBMs.

Yeah, those guys!