News24.com. January 10,
2001.
Washington - Outgoing US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Tuesday
outlined a series of international priorities she would like the incoming
administration to handle - and capped them with a wish for Fidel Castro's death.
Albright, inaugurating a new press briefing room at the State Department
just 11 days before leaving office, told reporters she would like to bequeath
the demise of the communist leader to President-elect George W Bush and his
foreign policy team.
"I wish them the actuarial tables in Cuba," Albright quipped in
reference to the science of calculating the life span of human beings, often for
insurance purposes.
Not including Bush, the 74-year-old Castro has outlasted nine US presidents
since coming to power in 1959, surviving not only ill-fated assassination
attempts inspired by Washington but also the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion and a
decades old economic embargo.
According to the World Health Organization, Castro has already surpassed the
average life span for male Cubans, which was calculated at 68.4 years in June
2000.
Albright's remark about Castro, which was met with chuckles from assembled
journalists and State Department officials, followed a less tongue-in-cheek
recitation of areas where she believed Bush and his secretary of state
designate, Colin Powell, should focus.
Those areas included the Middle East, the Balkans Russia, China and Taiwan,
Colombia and Latin America generally, Africa and the Korean peninsula. -
Sapa-AFP | 