New photo of Fidel Castro appears

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Posted on Tuesday, 11.11.08
EL NUEVO HERALD
New photo of Fidel Castro appears

The first public photo of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro since June has appeared on the internet page of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The photo shows Castro with Metropolitan Kiril Gundjaev during the Orthodox church leader's visit to Havana last month to inaugurate a new cathedral in Old Havana.

The 82-year-old Castro appears not much changed from his last publicly available image, taken during a Junre visit to Havana by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. After his meeting with Castro on Oct. 20, Gundjaev, head of the foreign church affairs for the Moscow patriarchate, told journalists that Castro had seemed "lucid but somewhat weak.''

At the time, Cuba's oficial media published photos of the visitor's meeting with Raul Castro, Fidel's brother and successor, and reports but no photos on his meeting with Fidel Castro.

The photo of Castro and Gundjaev began making the rounds of the Internet after exiled Cuban historian Emilio Ichikawa published it in his blog Monday. He said a reader had alerted him to the photo's existence on the Russian church's internet pages.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/766058.html

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The Miami Herald ran the photo of Fidel Castro and Metropolitan Kiril Gundjaev in their Spanish version of the Herald, El Nuevo Herald but they saw fit NOT to run it in their English paper.

Here's the "Nuevo's" photo:

[Warpy]

1. He looks terribly frail and underweight.

I doubt seriously if he'll live much longer.

I hope his government survives and progresses.

[Bobbieo]

2. 'Lucid but somewhat weak' I know just how he feels - Bobbie 85!!!

[kayakjohnny]

3. But still standing. Don't forget that part.

Even though it looks like his grip on the pontiff's arm is just a bit tight.

[kayakjohnny]

4. Oh, and he still has that fire in his eyes.

'specially after 3 whopper 'canes this year. Good on the old dude.

[ohio2007]

8. thats called photoshop

whats with the holy man


never know when its time to read the "last rights"

[Billy Burnett]

5. Fake fake fake fake fake fake fake fake fake fake fake fake

Castro's dead. EVERYBODY knows it.

At least, that's what some anti Cuba experts here on DU tell me. ;)

[WriteDown]

15. Odd.....

That we never see any live video or audio. Don't you think? Kim Jong Castro looks like he's been cut and pasted into that photo.

[Billy Burnett]

19. It must be a fake then.

Your usual presentation of irrefutable proof convinced me. :eyes:

[WriteDown]

22. Never said it was irrefutable...

just a viable theory.

[MellowDem]

6. Castro's hand grasping the arm...

does look kinda weird. Like it was photoshopped. Course, I'm sure if anyone could get a picture of Castro when no one else can it is the Russian Orthodox Church ;-)

[Judi Lynn]

9. They've had a Russian Orthodox church in Havana for decades. That's why the man was there.

Russians who lived in Cuba attended their own church there. It remains in Havana because Cubans joined over the years.

[unkachuck]

7. at 82 and 'weak'....

....Fidel still looks healthier than all the dead US presidents he's managed to out live....

[Judi Lynn]

10. Here's a larger photo for the viewing pleasure of the DU ace photoshop spotters:

From a Spanish language newspaper, I think, from Peru:

Publican la primera fotografía de Fidel Castro en cinco meses
(first photograph of Fidel Castro in five months)

http://e.peru21.pe.nyud.net:8090/102/ima/0/0/0/0/7/7763.jpg

To my inexperienced eye the area where Fidel Castro's hand clutches the forearm, near the wrist of the Metropolitan looks almost like a hand clutching a forearm near the wrist. I could swear I can sense where the thumb goes, and the first finger and middle finger on the other side of the arm. Of course I'm not an expert, and that's why I don't see it as a bogus photo, and furthermore, don't even imagine the Russian Orthodox church is connected to any "cover-up" of a dead Fidel Castro.

What the #### would be the point? Of course, some geniuses have probably figured that all out, and will let us know.

http://www.christdesert.org.nyud.net:8090/images/Links/947-Russian_cross_full.jpg

Jesus Christ!

[WriteDown]

16. Judi...

Can't see the photos. Do you have a link?

[PassingFair]

11. Are we SURE it's not Zelig?

He looks awfully familiar.

[IndianaGreen]

12. So much for Cuba persecuting people of faith!

When JPII visited Cuba back in the 1990s, he complained to Fidel about Santeria. Apparently the RCC is upset that it lost its preeminent pre-Revolution role, and finds itself competing against Santeria followers.

[Judi Lynn]

13. That's amazing! No doubt a lot of churches are like that. During the communist scare in the 1950's,

some right-wingers swore that Catholics were also communists, and told whoppers about eye-witnesses discovering they were hiding ammunition in their basements in places like California, all poised and ready to take over the country.

Hearing the Pope was steamed that Santaría has adherents in Cuba is wry, for sure! Those Spanish conquerors and plantation owners should have insisted on taking slaves from Catholic countries, to do all the work for them in the Americas, then!

[Billy Burnett]

14. I've attended many church services (of many faiths) in Cuba.

Which is why I get a kick out of DU's anti Cuba experts (who've never been there, and don't know jack about Cuba) when they try to tell me that Castro kicked religion and the churches out of Cuba.

But, the picture HAS TO BE A FAKE. After all, DU's anti Cuba experts tell us that Fidel is dead. :eyes:

[blindpig]

18. Hell, they got Baptists.

Tho' not of the Southern variety. Told a couple Baptists dudes I was talking with that there was an army of missionaries waiting for Fidel to die so they could come down and 'save' the heathens. They laughed heartily.

One of those guys looked like Che junior, fatigues, beret, facial hair. He was a bird guide. Facial hair is not too common, beards are rare. I was told this was a mark of respect for Fidel. When I visited the market in Havana many folks called me 'Fidel', with a smile. I'm full bearded.

[WriteDown]

17. This photo is being scrubbed from everywhere....

Wonder what is going on.

edited for bad grammar

[Billy Burnett]

20. Weird. I see it here. When I look for it I see it all over the internets.

Must be my commie sympathizing computer. ;)

It's a fake for sure. It's so fake that your upstanding capitalist computer won't lower itself to even show it. ;)

[WriteDown]

21. It is gone from the Miami Herald and Judi's link

I've found it in a few places, but odd that it was been removed from others.

[Judi Lynn]

24. As I wrote above, the Miami Herald didn't show the photo, El Nuevo Herald did,

for reasons which would only make sense to an idiot.

I found another one, will see if this one works:

http://foto.rompres.ro/public/watermark.php?imgid=2955946

Just click the URL.

Here's the page where I found this one:
http://foto.rompres.ro/index.php?i=2955946

[Billy Burnett]

26. I love the accusations of fake photos coming from the RW anti Cuba factions.

A classic example of transference.

El Nuevo's photo flap
http://www.editteach.org/news?id=38

A striking, five-column color photo was splashed across the Sunday, June 25 edition of El Nuevo Herald. It showed four spandex-clad prostitutes in Cuba hailing a foreign tourist. Just a few feet away, two policemen conversed with a little girl and a woman. The headline: "Hookers: The Sad Meat of the American Dollar."

The cops obviously didn't care about the working girls — a clear sign of the hypocritically wanton ways of Fidel Castro's Cuba.

Problem is, the picture was a fake.

A QUESTION OF TRUTH:
Photojournalism And Visual Ethics
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2006/08/ethics.html

el Nuevo Herald manipulated two separate photographs and combined them into one fake picture to make it appear that police in Cuba were ignoring prostitution. The caption published with the fake photograph reads, “The government has proven incapable of confronting the dramatic phenomenon of prostitution.” The Spanish-language newspaper is well known to Florida readers for its rather transparent anti-Castro editorial agenda.

The Miami New Times, a popular alternative weekly newspaper, reported that photographer Roberto Koltun, who several years ago took one of the images involved in the fake combined photo, objected to el Nuevo Herald editors about what they planned to do with his picture. The other half of the fake photo was taken from an Associated Press photo by photographer John Moore shot in 1998, according to a story in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and also by el Nuevo Herald’s own admission.

[JVS]

23. How many adherents of the Moscow Patriarchate are in Havana that they need a new Cathedral?

Are these Russians left in Cuba from the Cold War or what?

[Judi Lynn]

25. As I understand it, that probably happened, and some of the members are Cubans

who joined it at some point.

Here's a small explanation I just located:

~snip~
At a news conference in Moscow before the trip, Kirill said that the church has a potential flock of about 10 000 including Russians, Ukrainians, Moldovans and the children of mixed marriages with Cubans.

In his comments at the consecration, Metropolitan Kirill recalled his amazement at Fidel Castro's warm reaction four years ago when it was proposed to him that a Russian Orthodox Church be built in Havana. "He not only expressed his agreement, but he did this with great joy," said Kirill and he quoted Castro as saying, "We will build a monument."

The Russian hierarch met with Fidel Castro on 20 October and conveyed the greetings of Patriarch Aleksei II, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, who did not make the trip to Cuba. A photograph posted on www.mospat.ru, another official Web site of the Russian Orthodox Church, shows Castro in a white track suit, looking thin and weak, grasping the arm of Kirill.

More:
http://www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=2389