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In his most prominent interview in years, 83-year-old Fidel Castro is "speaking slowly" but "appears relaxed and cogent," the Associated Press is reporting.
Castro, the communist revolutionary who ruled Cuba for nearly 50 years, has been out of the spotlight since he handed power to his brother, Raul, after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in 2006. His appearance on the Round Table is being broadcast live on Cuban TV and radio.
Castro will be talking about his theory that the world is on the verge of nuclear war, thanks to the conflict between the United States and Iran, Reuters says.
"The empire" — Castro's euphemism for the United States — "is at the point of committing a terrible error that nobody can stop. It advances inexorably toward a sinister fate," he wrote in his July 5 column for Granma, the Communist Party newspaper. Read it in English or Spanish.
Meanwhile, the first 11 of 52 political prisoners Cuba has agreed to release will leave for Madrid tonight. They are among 20 prisoners who will resettle in Spain as part of Cuba's largest release of dissidents in a decade.
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Gingrich to 'consider seriously' running for president
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Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. House speaker, tells the Associated Press he's seriously considering seeking the 2012 Republican presidential nomination and will announce his decision in February or March.
"I've never been this serious," Gingrich, 67, said. "It's fair to say that by February the groundwork will have been laid to consider seriously whether or not to run."
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Salazar issues new moratorium on deep-water drilling
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Hoping to side-step judicial objections, the Obama administration has issued a new moratorium on deep-water drilling that is not based on depth. The ban runs through Nov. 30.
In announcing the moratorium, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said a pause is still needed to ensure that drillers implement new safety measures and are prepared to handle spills.
The moratorium applies to any deep-water floating facility with drilling activities. A previous moratorium that has been struck down by two federal courts applied to waters deeper than 500 feet.
Read the Interior Department's news release here.
In late May, President Obama suspended drilling for six months at 33 wells in the Gulf of Mexico and blocked new permits. A federal appeals court upheld a lower court's rejection of that moratorium last week.
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