Weekly Report - 12 July 2012 (WR-12-27)

Cuban President Raúl Castro visited China and Vietnam in early July on his first visit to either country since he formally took over from his brother Fidel in February 2008. He stopped over in Russia en route back home, his second visit to the country. Marino Murillo, the main architect of Castro’s tentative economic reforms, spent a week in Beijing in late February, where he met China’s deputy PM Hui Liangyu and spent much of his time at China’s national reform and development commission.