By Gwynne Dyer
Opening the National People's Congress in Beijing, Prime Minister Li Keqiang set China's growth target for the coming year at 6.5-7 per cent, the lowest in decades. Only two years ago, he said 7% was the lowest acceptable growth rate, but he has had to eat his words. He really isn't in charge of very much anymore.
An Argentine long distance runner has won the Falkland Islands Standard Chartered Stanley Marathon which is officially the World's Most Southerly AIMS-Certified Marathon. Rafael Lencina from the northern province of Tucuman completed on Sunday the 26 miles in 2 hours 35 minutes and 34 seconds, which is also a new record for the competition.
Brazil's state-run oil company, Petrobras, reported a record quarterly loss of $10.2 billion on Monday due to a large reduction in the value of some assets amid lower oil prices. Petrobras has been at the center of a sprawling corruption scandal that has ensnared some of Brazil's most powerful lawmakers and business executives.
President Barack Obama in Havana has a busy agenda scheduled for Tuesday which includes a major speech that Cuban officials said would be carried on TV. Before departing for Argentina, Obama has planned to meet with political dissidents and attend a game between Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays and Cuba's beloved national team.
Cuban President Raul Castro directly challenged President Obama on the heels of their historic meeting in Havana on Monday to lift more restrictions on the island and return land used for the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay – as the visiting U.S. president, in turn, chided the Cuban government on democracy and human rights
Cuban President Raúl Castro sparred with US reporters on Monday over Cuba’s human-rights record, saying at one point that it was not fair to ask about prisoners in general and at another point that he would release by the end of the day anyone named as a political prisoner by a reporter.