{"page":"\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/resources-c03aa079.css\" /\u003e\n\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/lp_boclips_stylesheets-517835be.css\" media=\"all\" /\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-title='Profile on Raul Castro, now set to take over from brother as president' data-url='/boclips/videos/5c54bdd1d8eafeecae136e87' data-video-url='/boclips/videos/5c54bdd1d8eafeecae136e87' id='bo_player_modal'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='boclips-resource-page modal-dialog panel-container'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='react-notifications-root'\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-header'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-type'\u003e\n\u003ci aria-hidden='true' class='fai fa-regular fa-circle-play'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\nVideo\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch1 class='rp-title' id='video-title'\u003e\nProfile on Raul Castro, now set to take over from brother as president\n\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-actions'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='mr-1'\u003e\n\u003ca class=\"btn btn-success\" data-posthog-event=\"Signup: LP Signup Activity\" data-posthog-location=\"body_link_boclips\" data-remote=\"true\" href=\"/subscription/new\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGet Free Access\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"\"\u003e for 10 Days\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-body'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-info'\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-label='Hide resource details' class='rp-hide-info' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u0026times;\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Expand resource details' class='rp-expand-info fai fa-solid fa-up-right-and-down-left-from-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Compress resource details' class='rp-compress-info fai fa-solid fa-down-left-and-up-right-to-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-rating'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='resource-pool'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-label'\u003ePublisher:\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-name'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='text'\u003e\u003ca data-publisher-id=\"30356011\" href=\"/search?publisher_ids%5B%5D=30356011\"\u003eCurated Video\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-description'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='short-description'\u003eHavana, Dec 28, 20071. Raul Castro being applauded as he enters Cuban National Assembly2. Wide shot assembly members standing for Cuban National anthem3. Close up Cuban flags and emblem4. Close up of Fidel Castro's empty chair 5. Raul...\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='full-description hide'\u003eHavana, Dec 28, 2007\u003cbr/\u003e1. Raul Castro being applauded as he enters Cuban National Assembly\u003cbr/\u003e2. Wide shot assembly members standing for Cuban National anthem\u003cbr/\u003e3. Close up Cuban flags and emblem\u003cbr/\u003e4. Close up of Fidel Castro's empty chair \u003cbr/\u003e5. Raul Castro seated next to Fidel's empty chair\u003cbr/\u003e6. Wide shot assembly presidency table. \u003cbr/\u003e7 Medium shot delegates clapping and chanting: \"Fidel! Fidel!\"\u003cbr/\u003e8. Various of assembly delegates standing, clapping and chanting \"Fidel\"\u003cbr/\u003eHavana, January 28, 2008\u003cbr/\u003e9. Raul Castro getting out of van \u003cbr/\u003e10. Pan right, medium of Raul Castro saluting people\u003cbr/\u003e11. Pan right medium close-up of Raul Castro saluting people\u003cbr/\u003e12. Band and students holding flags\u003cbr/\u003e13. Students lighting torches \u003cbr/\u003e14. Medium of Raul Castro \u003cbr/\u003e15. Tilt down from crowd \u003cbr/\u003e16. Raul Castro waving Cuban flag\u003cbr/\u003e17. Mid shot, crowd holding torches\u003cbr/\u003e18. Raul Castro leading march\u003cbr/\u003e19. Mid shot, marchers holding banners and Cuban flags\u003cbr/\u003e20. Mid shot, Raul Castro waving \u003cbr/\u003e21. Flags at march\u003cbr/\u003e22. Mid shot, men walking while holding flags\u003cbr/\u003e23. Wide shot of march\u003cbr/\u003e24. Raul Castro waving while heading march\u003cbr/\u003e25. Wide of Raul Castro\u003cbr/\u003eAn ailing Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba's president on Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying he will not accept a new term when the new parliament meets Sunday.\u003cbr/\u003e\"I will not aspire to nor accept - I repeat, I will not aspire to nor accept - the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief,\" read a letter signed by Castro published early Tuesday in the online edition of the Communist Party daily Granma.\u003cbr/\u003eThe announcement effectively ends the rule of the 81-year-old Castro after almost 50 years, positioning his 76-year-old brother Raul for permanent succession to the presidency. \u003cbr/\u003eFidel Castro temporarily ceded his powers to his brother on July 31, 2006, when he announced that he had undergone intestinal surgery.\u003cbr/\u003eAfter living in the relative safety of his brother Fidel's shadow for nearly half a century, some doubted Raul Castro Ruz could successfully govern when he assumed provisional leadership of the communist-run island but the doubts quickly melted away.\u003cbr/\u003eFilled with the same revolutionary zeal that fuelled his brother, Raul joined led a failed attack on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago, Cuba, in 1953 in which most of their comrades were killed. \u003cbr/\u003eThey were incarcerated but freed under a pardon in 1955.\u003cbr/\u003eEven then, Raul was Cuba's leader-in-waiting, often working in the background but always faithful to Fidel.\u003cbr/\u003eThe guerrillas gained power and staunch US-ally, then-president, Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba on New Year's Day 1959.\u003cbr/\u003eThe fourth of seven children, Raul Castro Ruz was born in eastern Cuba on June 3, 1931. He was the only other Castro to hold governmental power.\u003cbr/\u003eHe attended Roman Catholic schools like his brother and followed him to the University of Havana.\u003cbr/\u003eRaul was named head of Cuba's armed forces late in 1959, and the following year cut off his ponytail to signify his conviction that the revolution was secure. In 1962 he became deputy prime minister and in 1972 first deputy prime minister, behind Fidel.\u003cbr/\u003eLong designated to succeed his brother as president of Cuba and head of the ruling Communist Party, Raul's style is businesslike, efficient - even a bit boring. While Fidel historically mesmerised his countrymen with dramatic, extemporaneous speeches stretching over hours, Raul rarely speaks for more than a half-hour and always reads from prepared notes, quickly outlining his points.\u003cbr/\u003eBut many observers believe Raul was long underestimated - mostly because of his brother's larger-than-life shadow - and that his pragmatic leadership style could make up for his duller public persona.\u003cbr/\u003eAs the world's longest ruling defence minister, Raul already has the loyalty of the nation's top generals, giving him control over as many as 50,000 active troops and firepower that includes Soviet-era tanks and fighter planes.\u003cbr/\u003eAlthough he embraced hardline communist ideals before Fidel did, many Cubans fervently hoped that Raul could prove more flexible than his brother when it comes to Cuba's rigidly controlled state economy.\u003cbr/\u003eWhile Fidel has pushed for more centralised control, Raul oversaw some of Cuba's experiments with limited market reforms after the Soviet Union collapsed. He even expressed interest in China's version of free-enterprise socialism during a November 1997 visit to Beijing.\u003cbr/\u003eRaul has guided Cuba's military into a new role in bolstering the economy since the Soviet Union's breakup. The armed forces operate a major tourism company and have become a major food producer.\u003cbr/\u003eOnce temporarily in power, many Cubans seemed to appreciate Raul's frank acknowledgment of problems affecting their everyday lives, and hoped he would do something about it. They smiled and nodded in December 2006 when Raul angrily declared that Cuba's transportation system was on \"the point of collapse\" and criticised officials who made excuses.\u003cbr/\u003eAs a whole, Cuba remained calm and on course for months while Fidel Castro remained out of sight after his intestinal surgery, the details of his medical condition a state secret.\u003cbr/\u003eThere were no uprisings and no mass exodus, contrary to long-held predictions in Washington and Miami about what would happen when Fidel Castro was no longer in power.\u003cbr/\u003eOne Castro replaced another and nothing changed - at least on the surface - as the younger brother led and the older brother followed doctors' orders to rest.\u003cbr/\u003eThose who had argued that the younger brother could not rule noted that Raul, who turned 76 in June 2007 , lacked the charisma that helped his brother exercise almost absolute power over the Caribbean's biggest island for nearly 50 years.\u003cbr/\u003eIn the months after assuming provisional power, Raul proved he could govern at least over the short term and some believed he could stay in power if he gave into public pressure by launching a few modest economic reforms.\u003cbr/\u003eLong dismissing even the possibility of a Raul Castro-led government, Cuban exiles in Miami and Washington bureaucrats have dreamed that Cuba's communist system would die along with Fidel Castro, opening the door to a US-style democracy and free markets.\u003cbr/\u003eAmerican policy has long been to undermine Cuba's planned succession from Fidel to Raul.\u003cbr/\u003eThe Helms-Burton law of 1996, which tightened decades of US trade and travel sanctions against the island, pointedly states that the United States cannot recognise any Cuban government that includes Fidel or Raul Castro.\u003cbr/\u003ePresident George W. Bush's administration so hoped for an American-style democracy in a post-Fidel Castro Cuba that it appointed a commission to draw up plans for providing US assistance to a new non-communist government and named a \"transition coordinator\" to oversee the process.\u003cbr/\u003eBut those who have studied the Castro brothers dispassionately say there is no reason to doubt Raul will rule the nation after his brother is gone - at least in the short term.\u003cbr/\u003eCuban officials have always said there will be an institutionalised succession after Fidel Castro's death, not a transition to a new style of government, and that US plans are a thinly veiled attempt at regime change.\u003cbr/\u003eThe more pragmatic of the two brothers, Raul is largely seen as more likely to be able to communicate with the US government.\u003cbr/\u003eIn his first public statement after Fidel fell ill, Raul was quoted in the Communist Party daily Granma on Aug. 18, 2006 that Cuba was open to normalised relations with the United States \"on an equal plane.\"\u003cbr/\u003eBut, as Fidel's mortality had become clear to all, Raul set out a vision for the future that his brother would have seen as a fitting legacy - \"\"Fidel's substitute can only be the Cuban Communist Party.\"\u003cbr/\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='action-container flex justify-between'\u003e\n\u003cbutton aria-expanded='false' aria-label='Read more description' class='rp-full-description' type='button'\u003e\n\u003ci class='fai fa-solid fa-align-left'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cspan id='read_more'\u003eRead More\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/button\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-report'\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-labelledby='resource-details-heading' class='rp-info-section'\u003e\n\u003ch2 class='title' id='resource-details-heading'\u003eResource Details\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-resource-details clearfix'\u003e\n\u003cdiv 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