MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Castro heads Venezuelan military graduation event

Cuba's Fidel Castro was the graduation patron of 74 officers from Venezuela's elite military academy. Castro acted on request from the Venezuelan officers' promotion that flew to Havana for the celebration.

"For Cuba, it's a great honor, a real privilege, your decision to hold this event in our country" said the Cuban leader at the graduation ceremony held at the Council of State in Havana.

Castro bestowed upon the newly graduated officers Cuban "military brotherhood" medals and diplomas from Venezuela's Libertador Simon Bolivar military academy. "It is the Cuban people, and not me, who are the real patrons of this graduation, a deed for which we will always be grateful and which we will never forget" said the 78 year old leader.

"Change in the region is inevitable; a silent but unstoppable revolution is taking place in the whole continent" added Mr. Castro.

However he expressed concern over what he described as the "real risk", for the first time in history, that the human species could disappear and accused the United States of turning the world into a "powder keg".

Castro underlined "it's not possible to explain the amount of resources that the U.S. administration is squandering on arms, instead of using them on research to eradicate the pandemics that science has not been able to eliminate".

Venezuela, Castro's main ally in the hemisphere, supplies 80,000 barrels of oil daily to Cuba at preferential prices.