[NYTr] Looney Miami Gusanos Go Wild over Rumors of Fidel's Death Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 01:38:17 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [This is the foolish scum that Obama and Hillary want to help carry them into the White House? With judgment like that, who'd want them there?] The Observer - Aug 26, 2007 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2156349,00.html 'Castro dead' rumours send Miami wild by Tracy McVeigh According to the official line from Cuba, Fidel Castro is very much alive - but that has not stopped fevered speculation in Miami. Rumours of the Cuban leader's premature death have been a staple in this city of exiles since it was announced that he would turn over power to his brother Raul because of an intestinal illness. Castro, who has ruled Cuba for nearly 48 years, has not been seen in public since. The rumour mill intensified after his 81st birthday came and went on 13 August with no photographs, letters or recordings to mark the occasion. This weekend the airwaves and online blogs pitched into overdrive and the rumours began to feed off themselves. Sandra Avila, an executive at a design firm in Miami's Coconut Grove, received calls all day. 'I've heard the rumours before, but there's a different feeling this time, like this time it's real,' she said. Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, a Cuban-American who normally deals with Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, leapt into the fray. His sources, he reported, were saying the Miami police were poised to announce Castro's death. To borrow a title from Colombian author and Castro friend, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the past two weeks have been a nonstop 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold'. 'For us it's not so much the waiting for the death of a person,' said Joanna Burgos, spokeswoman for a Miami-based youth group that campaigns for a democratic Cuba. 'It's much more the waiting for the opportunity for young people on the island to have a chance to live freely.' *** Times of India - Aug 26, 2007 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Rest_of_World/_Chavez_denies_rumors_of_Fidel_Castros_death/articleshow/2311186.cms Chavez denies rumors of Fidel Castro's death CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking at a public event on Saturday, denied persistent rumors that his close ally Cuban leader Fidel Castro had died. Chavez was reacting to talk among Cuban exiles and echoed by foreign news outlets, especially in Florida, that the ailing Castro, 81, had passed away. Castro, who turned 81 on August 13 with little celebration in Cuba, underwent intestinal surgery in July 2006 and handed power over temporarily to his brother Raul. He has not been seen in public since before the operation, though he has appeared in photographs and eight videos, the last of which aired on June 5. "Those who want him to die will be frustrated, because Fidel Castro will never die," said Chavez, one of the few who visited the revolutionary leader at his sickbed. Chavez said that Castro "will always live among the people that fight for a better destiny. He will always live in the people of Cuba, of Venezuela, and of America." Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque on Thursday, while attending an event in Brazil, also denied talk of Castro's death. Castro "is steady, on track with his recovery, showing discipline, a lot of dedication and a lot of activity, writing, reading and working," Perez Roque told AFP . Chavez's remarks on Saturday came at an event aimed at supporting his new party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, which brings together the different leftist groups that support him. Critics accuse Chavez of emulating Castro, and trying to impose a Cuban-style communist regime in Venezuela. *** The Miami Herald via The Seattle Times - Aug 25, 2007 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003852598_castro25.html Rumor has it Castro is dead b once again By Lydia Martin The Miami Herald MIAMI b On Friday, the rumors heated up again for the third week in a row: Fidel Castro's death would be announced, first at 2 p.m., then at 4, then at 5. For the past year, since the Cuban government said Castro had ceded power to brother Raul after intestinal surgery, rumors that Castro is on the brink of meeting his maker keep boiling over and dying down. Friday, teary callers told Ninoska Perez, of Radio Mambi, they were sure this was it, and Perez, as usual, reminded, "The moment will come, but this is not the moment." At Aaction Home Health in Hialeah, office workers were abuzz because somebody from Cuba called a colleague to say folks in Havana were taking to the streets in anticipation of the news. At the University of Miami, media-relations officers worked the phones in search of confirmation. But again, none of the rumors seemed to be panning out. For many, waiting for proof has become like the low-grade anxiety that comes when you're bracing for a hurricane that may or may not hit. Everyone knows whatever happens will be disruptive in some way. The rumors also reached fever pitch last weekend. The media perked up and started another round of the confirmation game. Calls flooded Miami Mayor Manny Diaz's office. The University of Miami and its Cuba experts wound up on high alert. And the community started rumbling anew, parents reaching out to children, friends calling friends. "Last Friday, when the rumors started again, my phone rang off the hook," said Andy Gomez, senior fellow at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban & Cuban-American Studies. "It was everybody. Friends, family, the State Department. People went nuts." Another false alarm. For now, the older generation in particular is keeping a stiff upper lip, said Radio Mambi's Armando Perez Roura, a longtime Cuban radio personality who has been poised to break the news of Castro's demise for decades. "This is definitely the calm before the storm," Perez Roura said. After all, he said, it was a younger, more recently arrived Cuban crowd that jumped the gun and swarmed Calle Ocho to celebrate Castro's death when news of his ceding power broke at the end of July last year. "The rest of us have spent a lot of years in this process," Perez Roura said. "Waiting for something to happen, hearing rumors that never turn out to be true. We're not going to react until we know for sure." 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