JOIN USIn a blunt assessment of the island's economy, former President Castro has said "the Cuban model doesn't even work for us any more."It could be seen as a backing for economic reform in Cuba after President Raul Castro announced last month that as much as 20 per cent of the state labour force would lose their jobs or be transferred over five year.
The comment was made by Castro, 84, during an interview by an American journalist with The Atlantic, who was invited by the father of 1959 revolution to discuss a recent article in his magazine about the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran in the near future.
In an apparent warning to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran President, not to resort to anti-Semitism, Castro said: "The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours – there is nothing that compares to the Holocaust."
Asked if he would repeat his comments to Ahmadinejad, he replied: "I am saying this so you can communicate it."Castro questioned his own actions during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when he recommended the Soviet leaders that they use nuclear weapons against the US.
He said "In Cuba, we would only use nuclear power for peaceful means... I didn't think I was in Iran."