Maybe charisma isn't that important after all.
Dour and short, new Cuban President Raul Castro shuns the spotlight and often looks uncomfortable when he has to appear in public. Friends call him "the Prussian" for his cold, efficient style and describe his leadership as businesslike -- even boring.
That's very different from his iconic elder brother Fidel, who inspired three generations of revolutionaries worldwide and never met a grand stage he didn't like.
PHOTO: EPA
Separated by five years, the pair is so different that many doubted the younger Castro could successfully govern when he assumed provisional leadership of the communist-run island on July 31, 2006. But those doubts quickly melted away.
Cuba remained calm and little-changed for nearly 19 months while Fidel Castro, now 81, stayed out of sight after emergency intestinal surgery. The man who dominated all levels of government and mesmerized Cubans with speeches and boundless energy was suddenly nowhere to be found. Because his condition and exact ailments were classified, rumors that he was dead flew on numerous occasions.
Still, there were no riots, no mass exodus of refugees on makeshift rafts. A communist government that was supposed to crumble held fast -- surviving its potentially weakest moment unscathed, then was little changed afterward.
"I think that Raul is very much in charge. Obviously he's had almost 19 months now of doing it," said Brian Latell, a longtime CIA analyst who wrote a 2002 book about the younger Castro called After Fidel. "His standing with the Cuban people has improved so much, I think, just because he's so different from Fidel."
That's why Fidel Castro's resignation letter had an anticlimactic feel to many Cubans. He is retiring as president for good, but his successor has already been in place and consolidating his power, for so long.
Washington has dismissed the younger Castro as "Fidel Lite," even though he has said he'd be willing to negotiate improved relations with the US. But adversaries and Cuba watchers have spent decades underestimating Raul.
In fact, Cuba was so confident the transition would be smooth that Raul Castro did not appear in public the first few days after his brother announced he was formally stepping aside.
Nor was there a major, visible mobilization of soldiers and police officers of the sort that followed Castro's announcement he was ill.
"The uncertainty in July '06 was very, very high," Latell said. "This is different. They had plenty of time to get everything adjusted."
Raul has spent nearly all of his life in his older brother's shadow, and he showed no signs of racing to the spotlight in the moments after he was named president on Sunday by Cuba's parliament.
"There is only one commander in chief," he said, referring to Fidel.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez noted Raul's long record of loyalty as he welcomed the new Cuban leader:
"Raul has always been there, has always been quiet, has always been almost invisible, but working the most, faithful to the revolution, faithful to the people and faithful to his marrow to his elder brother Fidel," Chavez said.
Raul has served as defense minister since he, his brother and a band of bearded rebels toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
The nation's top generals are intensely loyal to Raul and he has long wielded almost absolute power over as many as 50,000 active troops, and firepower that includes Soviet-era tanks and fighter planes.
"As soldiers, they are happy with a man who they know extremely well after 49 years, a man who chose many of them for top command positions and has taken care of them," said Cuba military expert Hal Klepak, of the Royal Military College of Canada.
Raul Castro is said to be quick with a joke and kind to those he works with, but he has a well-known tough side, overseeing the execution of political opponents following the revolution.
The younger Castro embraced communism before his older brother did, but under his guidance the armed forces played a key role in small, free-market reforms that bolstered the economy since the Soviet Union's breakup cost Cuba its chief economic benefactor. Top officers now operate major tourism, retail and export companies, even produce basic foodstuffs.
Since taking power provisionally, Raul has raised expectations that small economic reforms could be coming, calling for unspecified "structural changes" in the communist system and encouraging Cubans to only debate the country's economic future.
Latell suggested that Raul could face growing dissent if he does not promote some economic openings. But the Cuban economy is no longer the shambles it was after the Soviet Union's collapse.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home