Link Banana

Though many of these shouldn’t count — being either illustrations or stills from movies — it’s still interesting to look through.

(via Mark Larson, who points out that Fidel Castro appears nine times)

Foreign Policy’s Passport put together a quick rundown of all the impressive-sounding jobs held by Castros in Cuba. I have to admit that I’d never even realized that Fidel Castro had children.

In light of the Colombia situation, Slate’s Explainer offered a good bit of relevant history that I was somewhat surprised by:

With the exception of two militia movements that successfully seized and retained power—Fidel Castro’s 26^th of July movement in Cuba and, 20 years later, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua—most of Latin America’s armed groups were defeated by their nations’ governments years ago. The FARC has endured because the cocaine trade in Colombia has become a huge source of revenue for the group—by some estimates, $250 million to $500 million a year, or at least half of its income. The other major leftist insurgent group that remains active in Latin America today is also Colombian: the National Liberation Army, or the ELN. Drug money helped this smaller group endure as well, though it may make up only one-tenth of ELN’s income; kidnapping and extortion provide the bulk.

Stephen Hugh-Jones, like many others, says that the American (and European) embargoes of Cuba are useless at best.

That widespread affection, I’m told, still survives, even if it is more qualified, and these days Raulified, than it once was. For that, Fidel should thank, not least, successive presidents of the United States. He’s faced ten, and not one has had the political nous, or will, or maybe strength, to stop beating Cuba with sticks and try carrots instead. Forget the Bay of Pigs — the American trade embargo on Cuba surely ranks among the longest-lasting geopolicy failures in history.

Yet failure was easily foreseeable, and foresight was swiftly proved right. Surprise, surprise. If the mighty neighbour who used to run your country, and cheerfully backed its previous dictator, first lets loose an amateur invasion, and then for 45 years does its best to impoverish you as a step toward removing the new one — well, how would you feel? And would you have rushed to notice how the Cuban road to socialism was quite capable of impoverishing you by itself?

In Pakistan (title link):

Pakistan appeared to be heading for a transition to an elected civilian government Tuesday after President Pervez Musharraf told visiting United States senators that he accepted the resounding defeat of his party in elections, and would work with a new Parliament.

Less surprisingly, in Cuba:

Fidel Castro stepped down Tuesday morning as the president of Cuba after a long illness. … The resignation ends one of the longest tenures as one of the most all-powerful communist heads of state in the world.