Cuba's health care system is decades more advanced than any Latin American country. In fact with one docter per 200 citizens it even leads the US with one per 400. It even has a highly advanced biotechnology industry working in many important fields including finding a cure for aids. However, the refusal of the US to allow Cuba to import many medicines it needs slows down research progress and hurts the local health care system.
Maybe this will change with a new regime, but somehow i doubt it.
ROBERT MacNEIL: Finally let me ask you a couple of personal questions, if I may. Do you want to go on being the president of Cuba until you die?
PRESIDENT FIDEL CASTRO (through interpreter): It depends on how many years I live. If I'm told that I can be now, I would say yes, I think I can be. If I could not do my job because of the experience I have now, I would also tell you that. I think that I am useful; I don't think I am indispensable. Nothing opposes my philosophy more than that. I believe we have done a lasting work that goes beyond us, beyond all of us. And if it were not so, why have we worked so much? If it were not so, we would have failed.
But our work is not a work of stones. It is not of materials but of consciousness, of moral values, and that is lasting. Either being president or not being president I am fully hopeful that the others will be better, and the sooner a new generation that is better than us comes, a more capable one, to replace us, the better. If we live three, four, five years, maybe 10, I don't know. But the day when I do not feel really, because of my physical capabilities or mental capabilities, that I could fulfill my duty and do my work, I will be the first to say it. If I live many years, you can be sure that I will not die as the president of this country. The first that would not want that, for sure, it's me.
If I want my mind to maintain itself clear and illuminated, just precisely to come to that very minute, to that very minute in which I'm able to notice that I have already done my work and that others can do it. So if I tell you now that I will resign -- I a soldier of the revolution, and I think I can still struggle, but I have no personal affection for honors and power or force, or the force in power. You have a president that is older, maybe at that age I do not have the physical or mental capabilities to do my work.
Has there ever been anyone killed? Yes, there have been five climbing fatalities since 1937. Three of these fatalities occurred while descending (rappelling) the Tower.
Source- National Park Service, US Dept of the Interior.
Maybe your right and they want to 'muddle' the figures
But in the UK our National Park figures in a matter of this nature would be accurate.
Of course we need to clean up our act, use alternative energy sources, that goes without saying. Its what we use our energy up on i believe is the root cause of the problem.
For instance, we spend billions of dollars a year on bottled water, where in most cases tap water is perfectly fine to drink. Here in the uk our coastline is littered with millions of washed up plastic bottles, most of them discarded water bottles. The amount of energy required to produce the bottles to supply us with this most uneeded 'commodity' is vast. We then have to worry about disposing of them, about one third go to landfill. I seems quite ironic we see fit to spend so much money on an item we dont need but many people in the world are dying because of the lack of it. This is just one example of how we just want to earn more to spend more and eventually to polute more. JMO
Not entirely supprised with your comment about not having a death wish to climb. In reality, climbers do not have a death wish, far from it, more of a lust for life in my experience. Rock climbing scores quite low on the fatalities scale compared to many other seemingly less hazardous sports. The whole ethos of climbing is built around safety and whilst there are extremists as in most sports, climbing for most is a relatively safe sport.
Oh and by the way.... there have been just five fatalities on Devils Tower since 1937. Three of them whilst rappelling on the way down.
Wherever i go i am and have always been drawn to the mountains, whether it be climbing, skiing, mountain biking or mountaineering. Still a bit of an adrenaline junkie i guess.
How warm is it where you are? Not very, i suspect.
New figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that ice levels have returned back to thier original levels. In fact Antartica has a third more ice than is usual for the time of year. Also, the nothern hemisphere, experiencing its coldest winter in decades has had its greatest snow cover since 1966. Even the Middle East saw snow reporting the heaviest falls in years. I wonder what Al Gore has to say about this.
Throwaway society its cetainly become. Whatever happened to the phrase 'mend and make do'
Trouble is, so many things, particularly electrical goods have a built in obsolescence these days. Of course we could take out the 'extended warranty' then we dont have to worry about it.
we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender
bodleing Forum Posts (13,810)
RE: CASTRO HAS RESIGNED
Cuba's health care system is decades more advancedthan any Latin American country. In fact with one
docter per 200 citizens it even leads the US with one
per 400.
It even has a highly advanced biotechnology industry
working in many important fields including finding a
cure for aids.
However, the refusal of the US to allow Cuba to import
many medicines it needs slows down research progress
and hurts the local health care system.
Maybe this will change with a new regime, but somehow
i doubt it.