Fidel Castro reign of power over

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Posted: 2/20/08

Fidel Castro resigns Cuban presidency after nearly half-century in power

1 HAVANA (AP) -- An ailing Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba's president Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying he was retiring and will not accept a new term when the new parliament meets Sunday.

"I will not aspire to nor accept‚ I repeat, I will not aspire to nor accept the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief," read a letter signed by Castro published early Tuesday in the online edition of the Communist Party daily Granma.

The announcement effectively ends the rule of the 81-year-old Castro after almost 50 years, positioning his 76-year-old brother Raul for permanent succession to the presidency. Fidel Castro temporarily ceded his powers to his brother on July 31, 2006, when he announced that he had undergone intestinal surgery.

Since then, the elder Castro has not been seen in public, appearing only sporadically in official photographs and videotapes and publishing dense essays about mostly international themes as his younger brother has consolidated his rule.

A new National Assembly was elected in January, and will meet for the first time Sunday to pick the governing Council of State, including the presidency that Fidel Castro has held since the assembly's 1976 creation. Before 1976, Castro was president under a different government structure, and previously served as prime minister.

President Bush says other nations should do more to end genocide in Darfur

2 KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) -- President George W. Bush is calling on all nations to step up efforts to end the genocidal killing in Sudan's western Darfur region "once and for all."

Speaking in Rwanda, which was wracked in 1994 with its own genocide, the president says the United States will use sanctions, pressure and money to help resolve the crisis. But Bush has been frustrated at the lack of willingness in some countries to do the same and sought to increase pressure with his remarks in the Rwandan capital of Kigali.

Bush announced that the U.S. will provide $100 million more to train peacekeepers for service in Darfur.

Air Force says budgets are billions of dollars short of what's needed

3 WASHINGTON (AP) - Air Force officials are warning that unless their budget is increased dramatically, and soon, the military's high-flying branch won't dominate the skies as it has for decades.

After more than six years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Air Force's aging jet fighters, bombers, cargo aircraft and gunships are at the breaking point, they say, and expensive, ultramodern replacements are needed fast.

"What we've done is put the requirement on the table that says, 'If we're going to do the missions you're going to ask us to do, it will require this kind of investment,'" Maj. Gen. Paul Selva, the Air Force's director of strategic planning, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"Failing that, we take what is already a geriatric Air Force," Selva said, "and we drive it for another 20 years into an area of uncertainty."

An extra $20 billion each year over the next five - beginning with an Air Force budget of about $137 billion in 2009 instead of the $117 billion proposed by the Bush administration - would solve that problem, according to Selva and other senior Air Force officers.

Wisconsin, Hawaii voters to choose between Obama and Clinton in Democratic primary

4 CHICAGO (AP) -- Democrats in Wisconsin and Hawaii were heading to the polls Tuesday in a presidential campaign that has grown increasingly negative with charges of broken promises, plagiarism and petty partisanship.

Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York criticized each other as they looked to break out of a tight race, fearing the prospect that neither one will secure the nomination before the convention this summer.

They entered Tuesday's contests closely divided in the hunt for the 2,025 delegates needed for the nomination: 1,281 for Obama and 1,218 for Clinton.

The day's biggest prize was Wisconsin, where 74 delegates were up for grabs and polls showed the two in a statistical dead heat. Neither candidate made the long trip to campaign in Hawaii, where 20 delegates were to be decided by a caucus.

Obama, born in Hawaii and living in Wisconsin's southern neighbor, hoped to build on his string of eight straight wins. Clinton's campaign played down her chances in Wisconsin, but was hoping to beat expectations to give her struggling candidacy new life.

Croc hunter's 4-year-old son unfazed by 1st snakebite; boy and sister promote toy line

5 NEW YORK (AP) -- Like father, like son? The 4-year-old son of "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin wasn't at all alarmed when he was recently bitten by a baby boa constrictor, according to his mother.

"He picked one of them up and it bit him on the finger, and he was so proud to have copped his first hit," Irwin's widow, Terri, said Monday at an appearance at FAO Schwarz with her two children to promote a new line of toys.

"He said, 'I hope it wasn't venomous,' so I assured Robert I wouldn't actually let him play with venomous snakes," she added.

Terri Irwin said the couple's 9-year-old daughter, Bindi, was first bitten by a snake when she was 18 months old.

The girl, who is featured in the Discovery Kids Channel show "Bindi the Jungle Girl," posed for cameras with a new action figure in her likeness.