Yahoo! February 19, 2001
Manic Street Preachers Play in Cuba
HAVANA, 18 (AP) - Welsh band Manic Street Preachers staged a rare rock
concert in communist Cuba for a few thousand fans - among them, 74-year-old
President Fidel Castro.
Castro drew cheers from the youthful Cuban crowd when he took a balcony seat
just before Manic Street Preachers plunged into an hour-long set late Saturday
with songs denouncing U.S. policy toward this island nation.
Castro stood and applauded after lead singer James Dean Bradfield performed
an acoustic version of "Baby Elian,'' an anti-American paean to the
7-year-old boy at the center of an international custody dispute who was
returned to Cuba from the United States last year.
The song calls the United States "the devil's playground'' and says
that Elian had been "kidnapped to the promised land.'' Band members also
dedicated a song to three-time Cuban Olympic boxing champion Felix Savon.
The band, whose albums include "The Holy Bible'' and "Everything
Must Go,'' played tracks from their latest release, "Know Your Enemy,''
whose cover sports a Cuban flag. Their free performance at Havana's Karl Marx
theater was billed as the biggest concert in Cuba by a Western rock band in 20
years. Many youths in the audience danced in the aisles throughout the show.
"Cuba has shown its independence and is a good example that everything
doesn't have to be 'Americanized' in this world,'' Bradfield told a pre-concert
news conference.
The last large pop concert by a Western group was in 1979, when Billy Joel
and Kris Kristofferson teamed up with Cuban musicians in an event called "Havana
Jams.''
Castro seized power in 1959 and initially denounced Western popular music as
a bad influence on youth. Recent years have seen increasing cultural exchanges,
and Castro himself has paid homage to John Lennon.
Cuba Blasts Attacks Against Iraq
HAVANA, Cuba 17 (AP) - Cuba blasted the "Yankee-British'' air attack
against Iraq as a "criminal'' act Saturday, and one newspaper in the
country depicted President Bush (news - web sites) as a gunslinging cowboy.
"I just killed my first civilians in Iraq. Now I feel like a
president!'' read a front-page cartoon in Juventud Rebelde, Cuba's communist
youth newspaper. The cartoon portrayed Bush in cowboy clothes, wearing a
military helmet.
"This aggression (is) the latest in a long series of criminal and
hostile acts that different U.S. administrations have committed against Iraqi
territory over the past 10 years,'' Cuba's Foreign Ministry said Saturday in a
statement published by the Communist Party newspaper Granma.
Friday's strikes on targets around Baghdad were the most serious in two
years. Iraqi media reported two people were killed; Granma put the number at
five.
The raids were denounced by U.S. allies in the Middle East on Saturday, and
drew criticism from France, Turkey and China.
Ten years after the Persian Gulf War (news - web sites), there are growing
calls for Washington to review its policies on Iraq. U.N. and Iraqi leaders are
to discuss an end to sanctions and an ongoing stalemate over weapons inspections
at meetings set for Feb. 26-27.
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