Cuba’s Raul Castro Hits 80

HAVANA TIMES, June 3 — Cuban President Raul Castro celebrates his 80th birthday on Friday. His brother and former president, Fidel Castro, reaches 85 in August.

Castro said he feels good as he joins the club of eighty-year-olds in Cuba’s top leadership, many of whom, like Raul, took part in the guerrilla struggle that toppled the Batista dictatorship in 1959.

In bidding farewell Thursday to the visiting former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010), Castro mentioned the reforms underway in the Cuban economy.

“Things must be done orderly, with institutionalism, there are many things still in force that are truly absurd or had a correct origin, but time has passed,” he said, reported the Cubadebate website.

Raul Castro and Lula da Silva toured the joint Brazil-Cuba deep water mega port project underway in Mariel west of the capital.

After concluding his two-day visit, Lula headed on to Venezuela where he meets on Friday with President Hugo Chavez.