Fidel Castro Endorses Clinton-Obama

Fidel Castro, the Cuban president, has predicted that Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama will team up to win the 2008 US presidential election. "The word today is that an apparently unbeatable ticket could be Hillary for president and Obama as her running mate," the ailing leader wrote in an editorial column in Granma, the Cuban Communist Party's newspaper. Mr Castro, 81, who has outlasted nine US leaders since his 1959 revolution, accused the American presidential candidates of "submission" to his exiled foes in Florida and offered a favourable assessment of only one of the 10 presidents he has known: Jimmy Carter. Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama called for democratic change in Cuba last week. But Mr Castro dismissed these calls, saying all of the candidates seeking Florida's "coveted" electoral college votes have had to demand a democratic government in Cuba - something the country's officials insist already exists - in order to win the backing of the powerful Cuban exile community.Last weekend Mr Obama called for loosening restrictions on how much money Cuban-Americans can send their Cuban relations and on how often they area allowed to visit family on the island, which lies just 90 miles off the coast of the continental US. "It can help make their families less dependent on Fidel Castro. That's the way to bring about real change in Cuba," the Illinois senator told more than 1,000 people in Miami's Little Havana. Mrs Clinton, a New York senator and the Democratic front-runner, last week reiterated her support for current US policy: "Until it is clear what type of policies might come with a new (Cuban) government, we cannot talk about changes in the US policies toward Cuba." The column attributed to Mr Castro - the second published so far this week - made no reference to recent rumours that the ailing leader had died or was dying. Nor did it reveal any information about his exact ailment or condition. Castro has not been seen in public in the 13 months since he announced he had undergone intestinal surgery and temporarily ceded power to his younger brother Raul.