HAVANA (AP) -- Fidel Castro can't stay away.
Despite
a vow to retire from his second career as a columnist last year, the
87-year-old revolutionary whose interests range from the nutrition
benefits of a leafy plant called moringa to the threat of nuclear
Armageddon apparently still has a lot to say about world events.
The
former president published a new essay Wednesday that took up nearly a
full page in the Communist Party newspaper Granma, warning of dire
consequences from the conflict in Syria. He also denied a Russian
newspaper report that alleged Cuba caved in to U.S. pressure and refused
to grant NSA leaker Edward Snowden transit en route to Latin America,
calling it a "paid-for lie."
"I admire the
bravery and justness in Snowden's declarations," Castro wrote. "In my
opinion, he did the world a service by revealing the repugnantly
dishonest politics of an empire that lies and cheats the world."
Castro
left office in 2006 due to a life-threatening intestinal ailment. But
for years afterward, state newspapers continued to carry his
semi-regular essays called "Reflections." They were also painstakingly
read out in their entirety by serious-faced news anchors.
In
June 2012, Castro announced that his columnist days were over. He said
at the time that his musings, some of which were increasingly brief and
mysterious, were taking up valuable media space.
But the famously loquacious leader has been unable to resist the temptation to weigh in on our troubled world.
In
April he published a "Reflection" urging restraint amid elevated
tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Last month state media carried a
letter of his about the seizure in Panama of Cuban weaponry bound for
North Korea.
This time it's the escalating talk of military intervention in Syria that inspired Castro to pick up his pen.
"I
am compelled to write because very soon grave things will happen,"
Castro wrote. "In our time, no more than 10 or 15 years go by without
the human race being in danger of extinction."
"The Empire's Navy and Air Force and their allies are preparing to begin a genocide against the Arab people," he added.
In
typical Castro style the column meanders somewhat, touching on
everything from the U.S. embargo against Cuba and Venezuelan President
Nicolas Maduro's tour of a visiting Russian naval vessel, to the crisis
in Egypt and our impersonal technological future.
"It
is said that by 2040, just 27 years from now, many tasks that today are
carried out by the police such as handing out tickets and other tasks,
will be done by robots," Castro wrote. "Can readers imagine how
difficult it will be to argue with a robot capable of making millions of
calculations per minute?"
Castro has appeared
in public only a few times this year. In July he was absent from an
event commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution's start
that was attended by key allies such as Maduro. Castro's brother and
successor, Raul, presided over the celebrations.
Cuba's Foreign Ministry also criticized Washington and its allies on Syria on Wednesday.
"An
aggression against Syria would provoke the gravest consequences for the
already troubled Middle East region," it said in a statement. "It would
constitute a flagrant violation of the principles of the charter of the
United Nations and international law, and it would increase the dangers
to international peace and security."
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Peter Orsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter-Orsi
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