Cuban exiles reacted furiously to the decision by the Bush administration to return the men. The influential Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) - normally a bastion of support for Republican governments - accused the White House of failing to meet its Cuba policy commitments made before the 2000 election, and said it would pay the price in next year's presidential elections.
The governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, even entered the debate, criticising Washington's decision to repatriate the men: 'Despite the good intentions of the administration to negotiate the safety of these folks, that is an oppressive régime, and given the environment in Cuba, it's just not right [to have sent the Cubans back].'
* Castro thunders at EU. Fidel Castro marked the fiftieth anniversary of his abortive attack on the Moncada army barracks on 26 July 1953, taken as the symbolic origin of the revolution, by lashing out at the EU in a vitriolic 70-minute speech. Addressing thousands of invited guests from 20 countries at the site of the attack, Castro responded to the EU's recent criticism of Cuba's human rights record and the common position adopted by EU foreign ministers conditioning aid on economic and political reform.
Castro rejected 'any humanitarian aid, or remaining aid, that may be offered by the governments of the European Union,' adding that, 'Cuba doesn't need the European Union to survive, develop and attain what you (Europeans) will never attain.'
* Central bank recalls US dollars. Cuba's central bank has ordered state companies to trade in US dollars for 'convertible pesos'. It claims that the 'good performance of the economy over the first half of the year' has created 'propitious conditions' for this new measure. Far more likely is that the move is an indication of the government's increasingly desperate economic plight, signifying a need to take dollars out of circulation to bolster its foreign exchange reserves, and to assert more control over state companies.
The economy grew by just 1.1% last year, with tourism falling by five percentage points. The low world sugar price also led to the sugar industry being restructured.
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