U.S. military officials confirmed Thursday that a guard at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay last January fired a "non-lethal round" to disperse detainees after one of them sought to climb a fence and others threw rocks at the guard tower.

No one was injured during the incident, which appears to be the first shooting involving rubber bullets in the 11-year history of the Guantanamo facility. Nonetheless, it has fueled claims by defense lawyers – denied by camp officials – that the  detainees have been engaged for weeks in widespread protests, including hunger strikes and refusing to sleep in their cells.

---

The conflicting claims about conditions come as the detention facility in Cuba – which began under President George Bush in 2002 – is once again in the spotlight. Congressional Republicans, led by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, on Thursday sharply criticized the Obama administration for flying the recently captured Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son in law, to New York to stand trial in federal court rather than sending him to Guantanamo.

Al-Qaida spokesman and bin Laden son-in-law captured

“When it comes to people like this ... we want them to go to Gitmo to be held in military custody for interrogation purposes," Graham said in a news conference.

But Obama administration officials say they have ruled out sending any more terror suspects to Guantanamo because it would undercut their intention to shut down the facility. On his first full day in office in January 2009, President Barack Obama vowed to close Guantanamo, but he has been blocked from doing so by Congress, leaving most of the 166 detainees remaining there in perpetual limbo – even though at least 55 of them have been publicly cleared for release by an administration task force consisting of U.S. intelligence agencies.

The shooting incident, first reported by the Miami Herald, occurred on the grounds of a new $744,000 soccer and recreation field that was opened last year and touted by base officials as an example of new and more permissive conditions at the facility. The new soccer field was featured in an NBC News report on Guantanamo last June.

Read more at The Isikoff Files

Navy Capt. Robert Durand, chief public affairs spokesman at Guantanamo, told NBC News in an email that on the afternoon of Jan. 2, the incident occurred "after a detainee attempted to climb the fence" in the new recreation field and a "small crowd of detainees began throwing rocks at the guard tower."

"After repeated warnings were ignored, the guard force was forced to employ appropriate crowd-dispersal measures, in accordance with standard operating procedures," Durand wrote.

In response to follow-up questions, Durand said that the measures involved the shooting of a "non-lethal round" consisting of "several small rubber balls with limited ability to penetrate skin and little ability to cause injury." One of these balls "hit a detainee," he added. (During a May 2006 disturbance at Guantanamo, guards fired pepper spray at detainees, Durand said.) 

Information only began to emerge in recent weeks when some of the detainees began informing their lawyers – whose communications with their clients are tightly regulated. One detainee, Bashir al-Marwalah, wrote his New York lawyers in a letter received  Feb. 22: "We are in danger. One of the soldiers fired on one of the brothers a month ago. Before that, they send the emergency forces with M-16 weapons into one of the brothers' cell blocks."

The letter, a copy and translation of which was obtained by NBC News,  further alleged that a copy of the Quran had been "desecrated" during a search the day before and that guards were going from "cell block to cell block" and taking away detainee possessions.

"Now they want to return us to the darkest days under Bush. They said this to us. Please do something." the letter stated. It then concluded: "We asked that this be announced to the media so that people know what the Obama administration is doing to prisoners now. All the brothers are now on a hunger strike in protest of mistreatment and the desecration of the Quran."

The claims in the letter have been echoed in the last few days by lawyers for other detainees , who have said their clients have told them about large-scale  hunger strikes – with some detainees "losing consciousness" and "coughing up blood."  The claims of widespread hunger strikes have been vigorously denied by Guantanamo officials, who say there are now seven who are doing so – about the same number as have for the past year. 

Pardiss Kebriaei, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, said she spoke to one of her clients, Ghaleb Al-Bihani, also a Yemeni, by phone this week and he said he has refused food for a month.  "He's dropped 23 pounds, he’s a diabetic, and medical staff have told him his life is in danger," Kebriaei said. 

Kebriaei said her client told her that there is now a "mass hunger strike" in Camp 6 – the largest and most permissive of the camps at Guantanamo – and that all but two detainees are participating. In addition, she said,  the detainees are protesting in other ways – by refusing to sleep in their cells, instead taking their mats outside and sleeping there. The trigger for the protests appears to be new restrictions and more comprehensive searches of cell blocks  imposed by the new camp commander, Rear Adm. John Smith.

Durand, the Guantanamo spokesman, disputed the lawyers' claims across the board.

“In broad terms, what we are seeing is a coordinated effort by detainees and their attorneys to take routine camp events and create a false picture of conditions," he wrote in an email. "Every day, to some degree, there are a few hunger strikers, a few detainees who assault or threaten guards. To describe the current conditions in the camp as 'deteriorating' is patently false."

He added: "Detainees, their attorneys, family members and sympathetic organizations routinely attempt to gain sympathy for detainees in the media by initiating and spreading falsehoods regarding conditions of detention, allegations of abuse by guards, denial of medical treatment, abuse of the Quran and reports of mass unrest or hunger striking. These tactics have been employed off and on since Joint Task Force Guantanamo opened in 2002."

Read more from Open Channel:

• Iran was holding bin Laden son-in-law Abu Ghaith, US officials say
• North Korea threat of nuclear attack predictable but worrisome
• Prison costs: One of Chicago's priciest neighborhoods isn't what you'd expect

 

HAVANA — Cubans remember the so-called Special Period of the 1990s, when the Soviet Union's sudden collapse plunged the island into years of economic depression, with cars and buses disappearing from the streets for lack of fuel and rolling blackouts leaving the capital in darkness.

Now Cubans fear a return of hard times following the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose billions of dollars of oil largesse helps the island's economy function. Some Havana residents were even talking about hoarding candles on Wednesday.

---

Francis Gomez, a 22-year-old tourism student from the city of Pinar del Rio, said she was "scared and worried."

"Ever since Chavez became ill, my parents have been saying, 'Please, God, don't let there be another Special Period'," she said.

While Chavez's party remains in power in Venezuela, and his political allies have said they won't change the program, at least not in the short term, a victory by the opposition in a presidential election expected in the coming weeks could change the game entirely. Opposition leader Henrique Capriles has said he would reevaluate the program if elected.

Cubans are not alone in having worries following Tuesday's death of Chavez, who used Venezuela's oil wealth to aid allies through a part-ideological, part-humanitarian program that gives out petroleum at preferential terms.

More than a dozen other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, many of them economic minnows, have benefited to the tune of billions of dollars from the Petrocaribe pact that was created in 2005 with the goal of unifying the regional oil industry under Venezuelan leadership and countering U.S. influence.

Cuba alone receives about 92,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil a day to meet half its consumption needs, worth around $3.2 billion a year, according to an estimate by University of Texas energy analyst Jorge Pinon.

Havana pays about half the bill through a barter exchange in which tens of thousands of doctors, teachers and other advisers provide services in Venezuela. The rest goes into 25-year credits with 1 percent interest.

"There's no cash exchange. They don't have to write a check. That's the importance of this agreement," Pinon said. "It represents $3.2 billion of free cash flow to the Cuban economy."

"If a new Venezuelan government turns that into a true commercial agreement where in 30 days you pay 100 percent in cash for what you owe, it would be a substantial economic impact to both Cuba and to Petrocaribe countries, no question about that," Pinon said.

Nicaragua, perhaps the second-most dependent on Venezuelan oil after Cuba, gets nearly all its 12 million barrels a year from Caracas, worth about $1.2 billion, said Nestor Avendano, an economist and president of the consulting firm Consultores Para el Desarrollo.

President Daniel Ortega, a staunch Chavez ally, pays about half up-front and finances the rest over 23 years at 2 percent annual interest.

La Prensa, Nicaragua's leading newspaper, noted in an editorial that Ortega has been trying to shore up economic reserves in recent months and raised taxes in January, apparently in anticipation of a reduction in Venezuelan aid.

The Dominican Republic gets just over 40 percent of its oil through Petrocaribe, and saves roughly $400 million a year from the arrangement. Struggling Jamaica, where debt is a whopping 140 percent of gross domestic product, gets roughly two-thirds of its crude through Petrocaribe.

Venezuelan largesse peppers the Caribbean
Across the Caribbean, it's the same story one island nation after another.

"Petrocaribe saved several Caribbean economies from certain collapse," said Anthony Bryan, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and an expert on U.S.-Caribbean relations.

Nicolas Maduro, Chavez's handpicked successor and a firm ideological ally of Cuba, is seen by analysts as more likely to win the election to replace Chavez. But in the absence of Chavez, who kept his political base in line through pure politics of personality, Maduro might come under pressure as he tries to control factions that don't always agree.

"I think that there's going to be a potential drop in Venezuelan willingness to sell oil (at preferential terms) because Maduro is going to be facing his own internal schisms," said Gregory Weeks, a political scientist specializing in Latin America at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "I think he's going to have to be paying more attention to directing resources to his own constituencies at home, rather than abroad."

Weeks added that Maduro would likely try to maintain the Cuba subsidy as much as possible for symbolic reasons, and many analysts say the island is less dependent on Venezuela than it was on the Soviets.

Shortages, inflation at 22 percent
But Venezuela's economy has problems that Chavez's successor will have to deal with. Inflation is 22 percent, dollars for imports are scarce amid currency control and residents complain about sporadic shortages of basic goods.

"Once Venezuela's budget deficit really begins to bite in a way that can no longer be ignored, then the government will have to make some tough decisions in term of spending," said Eric Farnsworth, an energy specialist with the Council of the Americas. "And one of the quickest ways to cut in any country is foreign aid."

For some Petrocaribe beneficiaries that might simply mean tightening belts. For others it could mean rising discontent or even potential unrest as popular social programs wither.

Nicaragua's Ortega, for example, has used the extra cash to put roofs on homes and finance health care and education in a country where 80 percent of the people live on less than $2 a day. Economist Rene Vallecillo said the country could see a 1 percentage-point drop in GDP growth if Venezuelan aid disappeared.

Haiti has used millions in Venezuelan aid to pay for fuel, renovate power stations and build low-income housing in the earthquake-torn nation.

Jamaica has used the 22,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil it got every day in 2011 to produce 95 percent of its electricity.

"If it's 95 percent of your power generation, that has broader implications in terms of your social well-being," Farnsworth said. "They're really going to hurt. ... This has been a lifeline."

A wave of public grief washed over Latin America following the death of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, reflecting the powerful emotions the charismatic leftist leader evoked in the region and around the world. 

The Cuban government, Venezuela's closest ally, declared official mourning for Wednesday and Thursday, and nationwide mourning for Friday.

---

"I tell you, this is sad and painful news not just for me, because ... Cuba and the entire world has lost a great man," said Armando Fuentes, a store clerk in Havana, after Venezuela’s Vice President Nicolas Maduro broke the news of Chavez’s death Tuesday.

Dayana Calzado, a 27-year-old Cuban lawyer, said the world had lost a great leader. "A very long time will pass before there is another leader like him," she said.

Chavez's passing was acutely felt in Latin America where his anti-colonialist and anti-American policies and rhetoric provoked both loyalty and anger.

Reports featuring crying mourners from around the continent dominated Venezuelan television in the hours after his death was announced.

Brazil's President, Dilma Rousseff, said she was mourning the loss of a great "friend" of her country, the BBC reported.

"This death should fill all Latin and Central Americans with sadness," she added, according to the BBC. "Hugo Chavez was without doubt a leader committed to his country and to the development of the people of Latin America."

Chavez has often criticized the United States on its history of intervention in the Americas and Washington's stance on countries such as Iran.

Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner suspended activities after receiving the news and traveled to Venezuela. She and her late husband, Nestor Kirchner, were close friends of Chavez.

Chile and Ecuador released official notes of condolence, while in Peru a minute of silence was held in Chavez’s honor. Meanwhile, Bolivia's President Evo Morales announced he would travel immediately to Caracas to pay his respects. Uruguayan President José Mujica also set off for Caracas.

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos tweeted: "I profoundly lament the death of the president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez Frías. Our sincere condolences."

Chavez's friends further afield also reacted to news of his death immediately.

"It's a tragedy. He was a great politician," Russia's U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin said of the death.

'Understood the needs of the poor'
In the United States, Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., who represents a largely Hispanic district, tweeted his condolences: "Hugo Chavez was a leader that understood the needs of the poor. He was committed to empowering the powerless. R.I.P. Mr. President."

Serrano's statement provoked an angry reaction form pro-troops charity Move America Forward.

"Chavez openly hated the United States and opposed any effort to spread freedom, democracy and free markets to Latin America," it said in a statement.

Nevertheless, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter also paid tribute to Chavez, and said in a statement that he "will be remembered for his bold assertion of autonomy and independence for Latin American governments." 

Joseph P. Kennedy II, chairman of non-profit Citizens Energy, which was criticized for receiving heating oil donations from the Venezuelan state-owned oil company, released a statement thanking Chavez for his generosity.

"There are close to two million people in the United States who received free heating assistance, thanks to President Chavez's leadership," Kennedy's statement read. "Our prayers go out to President Chavez's family, the people of Venezuela, and all who were warmed by his generosity."

The friction between the U.S. and the Chavez regime lasted until the end of his life.

Only minutes before the Venezuelan leader's death was announced, the State Department issued a statement rejecting Maduro’s earlier accusations that Chavez’s enemies gave him cancer and that U.S. diplomats in Venezuela plotted to destabilize the government.

Following the news of his death, the White House released a statement reinforcing its goal of improving its relationship with the Venezuelan government.

"At this challenging time of President Hugo Chavez's passing, the United States reaffirms its support for the Venezuelan people and its interest in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government," President Barack Obama’s statement read. "As Venezuela begins a new chapter in its history, the United States remains committed to policies that promote democratic principles, the rule of law, and respect for human rights."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Mike Rogers, R-Mich., also said he hoped for the two countries to turn a new leaf in their relationship.

"Hugo Chavez was a destabilizing force in Latin America, and an obstacle to progress in the region. I hope his death provides an opportunity for a new chapter in U.S.-Venezuelan relations," he said.

Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., issued a statement saying, "Sic semper tyrannis,” which translates to, "Thus always to tyrants."

Those words were used by John Wilkes Boothe before he fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre.

"After the welcome news of Hugo Chavez's death, I hope that the oppressed people of Venezuela will be able to live in freedom, not under miserable tyranny. I look forward to working in the House to promote a free, democratic, and pro-American government in Venezuela," Cotton added.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also used the opportunity to take a parting shot at Chavez, releasing a statement that read in part: "The Venezuelan people now have an opportunity to turn the page on one of the darkest periods in its history and embark on a new, albeit difficult, path to restore the rule of law, democratic principles, security and free enterprise system in a nation that deserves so much better than the socialist disaster of the past 14 years."

NBC News' Andrea Mitchell, Mary Murray, Edgar Zuniga, Sofia Perpetua, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related:

Venezuela's 'Comandante' Hugo Chavez dies

Analysis: Chavistas begin search for Latin America's next 'Comandante'

Full Venezuela coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Tue Mar 5, 2013 7:45 PM EST

CARACAS — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's breathing problems have worsened and he is suffering from a "severe" new respiratory infection as he struggles to recover from cancer surgery, the government said in a somber medical update on Monday.

The 58-year-old socialist leader has not been seen in public nor heard from in almost three months since undergoing the operation in Cuba. It was his fourth surgery since the disease was detected in mid-2011.

"Today there is a worsening of his respiratory function, related to his depressed immune system. There is now a new, severe infection," Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said, reading the latest brief statement on Chavez's condition.

---

Chavez made a surprise pre-dawn homecoming two weeks ago with none of the fanfare and celebration that had accompanied previous returns from treatment in Havana. The government said he is now fighting for his life at a Caracas military hospital. Armed guards are providing heavy security outside.

"The president has been receiving high-impact chemotherapy, along with other complementary treatments ... his general condition continues to be very delicate," Villegas said.

Chavez suffered multiple complications after the December 11 surgery, including unexpected bleeding and an earlier severe respiratory infection that officials said had been controlled.

The government said he had trouble speaking because he was breathing through a tracheal tube, but that he was giving orders to ministers by writing them down.

"The commander-president remains clinging to Christ and to life, conscious of the difficulties that he is facing, and complying strictly with the program designed by his medical team," Villegas said.

Chavez had undergone several grueling rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, which at times left him bald and bloated. He twice wrongly declared himself cured.

The only sight of the former soldier since his latest operation were four photos published by the government while he was still in Havana, showing him lying in a hospital bed.

Following an emotional Mass at the military hospital on Friday, Vice President Nicolas Maduro - Chavez's preferred successor if he is unable to carry on as president - said the president had decided for himself several days earlier that he would return to Venezuela from Cuba.

Chavez was going to begin a "tougher and more intense" phase of his treatment, Maduro said, and he wanted to be in Caracas.

Chavez's homecoming
Maduro said that included chemotherapy - prompting some in the opposition to question whether chemotherapy can be successfully given to patients in such a delicate state.

The government is furious at rumors in recent days that Chavez might have died, blaming them on an opposition plot by "far-right fascists" to destabilize the OPEC nation, which boasts the world's biggest oil reserves.

"We call on all our people to stay alert, untouched by the psychological war deployed by foreign laboratories with the corrupt Venezuelan right, seeking to generate violence as a pretext for a foreign intervention," Villegas said.

"At this time, unity and discipline are the bases to guarantee political stability," he said, adding that the government was accompanying Chavez's children and other relatives in "this battle full of love and spirituality."

Opposition leaders have accused Maduro of repeatedly lying about the president's real condition. Several dozen anti-government student protesters have chained themselves up in public to demand proof that Chavez is alive and in Venezuela.

"I can't even imagine the party they're going to have tomorrow with this news," pro-Chavez commentator Mario Silva said on state TV on Monday night. "But we all have to keep faith."

Should the Venezuelan leader step down or die, an election would be held within 30 days and would probably pit Maduro against opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in a presidential election in October.

The stakes are also high for the rest of Latin America. Chavez has been the most vocal critic of Washington in the region and has funded hefty aid programs for leftist governments from Bolivia to Cuba.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Velez) 

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

By Carlos Rajo, Telemundo

News analysis

(Editor's note: An earlier version of this article led to a correction)

Raul Castro’s recent announcement that he will leave power in 2018, and his appointment of 52-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel as first vice president and his de facto successor, are signs of the glacial pace of political change in Cuba.

Certainly, these announcements won’t satisfy those who for decades have been waiting for the Castro brothers’ exit.

Nevertheless, the move marks the beginning of the passing of the torch of power to a new generation.

For the first time in half a century, there is the real possibility that a person who did not fight in the Cuban Revolution will lead the country. Diaz-Canel was not even born when Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista in January 1959. Since then, a Castro has been in power in Cuba: first the now-retired, 86-year-old Fidel, and from 2006 to now, his younger brother, Raul, 81.

This generational change does not mean that Cuba will move to a different political system. There is no going back to capitalism, Raul Castro told the National Assembly on Sunday. Nevertheless, the move toward a generational change must be seen in the context of other reforms implemented by the younger Castro.

---

These reforms already are changing the face of Cuban socialism. Castro has introduced private farms, cooperatives in industries and activities outside agriculture, and an array of small business. Granted, these are restricted and heavily regulated, but still they are earning profits and starting to create a segment of wealthier, successful entrepreneurs. Cubans are also now allowed to sell houses and cars, and more recently, to travel abroad if they can get a visa from another country.

While little is known of Diaz-Canel’s ideology, it is likely that as the appointed Castro successor he is on board with the reforms.

The U.S. State Department reacted tepidly to Castro’s announcement and made clear that it would not be sufficient to prompt a lifting of the U.S. trade embargo. Although President Barack Obama doesn’t have election constraints in formulating a Cuba policy in his second term, the issue remains emotionally and politically charged in the U.S., and Congress is not likely to change its mind and lift the embargo while a Castro remains in power.

That doesn’t mean relations can’t change, however.

For instance, the Obama administration could remove Cuba from the list of states that sponsor terrorism. Cuba had been on that list since 1982, when it had the financial support of the Soviet Union and could afford to help guerrilla groups in Central and South America.

Cuba doesn’t have the resources to help armed groups - or even the political will to do so. Cuba is not Syria, North Korea or Iran in terms of being a threat to the U.S.

However, the lifting of the embargo is likely only after a period of more normal relations between the countries. There is also a legal obstacle: According to the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, the U.S. will recognize the legitimacy of a Cuban government only when someone other than a Castro is in power. For now, at least, it seems that won’t happen until 2018.

Demotions
The generational change in Cuba is real. Not only does Diaz-Canel take the place of the 83-year-old Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, but the composition of others organs of power is younger as well. Eighty percent of the members of the National Assembly were born after the revolution, and the average age of members of the Council of State is 57, with about 60 percent having been born post-revolution.

As is the tradition in Cuba, Diaz-Canel owes his influential position to one of the Castros -- in this case, Raul. As far back as 2003, the younger Castro talked about the “solid ideological firmness” of the electrical engineer, who also has served as a university professor and party boss in the Cuban provinces of Villa Clara and Holguin. Notably, Diaz-Canel served in the armed forces under Raul Castro and earned a reputation as a good manager of the military’s diverse commercial enterprises.

Diaz-Canel will have to be careful. There have been several young leaders who once looked like they had been chosen as a Castro successor but later fell from grace. In every case -- Roberto Robaina, Carlos Lague, Felipe Perez Roque -- they went from being the heir apparent to being suddenly demoted without much ceremony or explanation. The difference is that all were put in their positions of power by Fidel Castro and were demoted when they fell out of favor with him. Diaz-Canel is said to be Raul Castro’s favorite.

Assuming that nothing extraordinary happens before 2018, that Raul remains healthy and that there are no ideological purges – “corruption” is the favorite accusation of the Cuban leadership when it comes to making demotions --  the big question for Cuba, and for Diaz-Canel himself, is the success of Raul’s reforms.

If they work well, perhaps the regime will develop a sort of hybrid socialism-communism with a dynamic, state-controlled capitalist economy. Or maybe day by day the reforms will penetrate Cuban society and ultimately destroy one the few communist systems left in the world. Diaz-Canel, meanwhile, will start toying with the torch of power.

Only time will tell whether -- when the day comes in 2018 or sooner -- the Cuba that Diaz-Canel has known will still be there for him to rule.

Telemundo is NBC News' Spanish-language partner.

Related:

Fidel Castro makes 1st extended public appearance since 2010

Cuba pushes swap: its spies jailed in US for American contractor held in Havana

Cuba's little capitalists venture into a budding economy

 

HAVANA — Cuban leader Raul Castro announced on Sunday he would step down from power after his second term as president ends in 2018, and the new parliament named a 52-year-old rising star to become his first vice president and most visible successor.

Castro, 81, made the announcement in a nationally broadcast speech shortly after the Cuban National Assembly elected him to a second five-year term in the opening session of the new parliament.

"This will be my last term," Castro said.

---

In a surprise move, the new parliament named as his first vice president Miguel Diaz-Canel, a member of the political bureau who rose through the party ranks in the provinces to become the most visible possible successor to Castro. Diaz-Canel would succeed Castro if he cannot serve his full term.

The new government will almost certainly be the last headed up by the Castro brothers and their followers who have ruled Cuba since they swept down from the mountains in the 1959 revolution.

Raul Castro starts his second term immediately, leaving him free to retire in 2018, aged 86.

Former president Fidel Castro joined the meeting, in a rare public appearance. Since falling ill in 2006 and ceding the presidency to his brother, the elder Castro, 86, has given up official positions except as a deputy in the National Assembly.

Governments, Cuba watchers and Cubans were keenly observing to see if any new, and younger, faces might appear among the Council of State members, in particular its first vice president and five vice presidents.

Their hopes were partially fulfilled with Diaz-Canel's ascension. He replaces former first vice president, Jose Machado Ventura, 82, who will continue on as one of five vice presidents. Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdes, 80, and Gladys Bejerano, 66, the comptroller general were also re-elected as vice presidents.

Two other newcomers, Mercedes López Acea, 48, first secretary of the Havana communist party, and Salvador Valdes Mesa, 64, head of the official labor federation, also earned vice presidential slots.

Former vice president Esteban Lazo, member of the political bureau of the Communist Party, 68, left his post upon being named parliament president on Sunday, replacing Ricardo Alarcon, who served for 20 years.

Six of the Council's top seven members sit on the party's political bureau which is also lead by Castro.

The National Assembly meets for just a few weeks each year and delegates its legislative powers between sessions to the 31-member Council of State, which also functions as the nation's executive through the Council of Ministers it appoints.

Eighty percent of the 612 deputies, who were elected in an uncontested vote February 3 and with an average age under 50, were born after the Revolution.

HAVANA — Retired leader Fidel Castro voted in Cuba's general election on Sunday and chatted with well-wishers and local reporters in Havana for more than an hour in his first extended public appearance since 2010.

Castro had voted from his home in three previous elections since taking ill in 2006 and ceding power to his brother Raul two years later.

---

A stooped, snow-white-bearded Castro, 86, was seen on state-run television as he cast his ballot in the late afternoon, wearing a blue plaid shirt and light blue jacket.

The announcer said Castro talked about efforts to reform the economy, Latin American integration and other matters, including ailing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

He was heard in a weak voice praising popular participation in Sunday's election.

"The people are truly revolutionary. They have really sacrificed. We don't have to prove it; history will. Fifty years of the (U.S.) blockade and they haven't given in," he said.

Cubans went to the polls to elect a Communist Party-selected slate of 612 deputies to the National Assembly and more than 1,000 delegates to provincial assemblies during a time of change in how they live and work but not in how they vote.

President Raul Castro and other leaders were also shown on television casting their ballots and commenting on the importance of the election as a show of support for reforms and independence from the United States.

Raul Castro is decentralizing the state-dominated economy, allowing more space for private initiatives in agriculture and retail services, and he has lifted many restrictions on personal freedoms, such as travel and buying and selling homes and cars.

He has also introduced term limits (two five-year stints) for top government posts, but he has drawn the line at legalizing other political parties and contested elections.

Ted Piccone, deputy director of foreign policy at the Washington think tank the Brookings Institution, said Raul Castro's policies provide interesting insights for observers of the government, which continues to have a tense relationship with the United States.

"The one-party elections in Cuba, alongside steady but slow progress on opening the economy, represent how the current regime intends to manage change on the island -- giving the people more space to participate in the economy while controlling their role in politics and civic life," Piccone said. 

Some 95 percent of Cuba's 8.7 million residents over 16 years of age were expected to cast ballots with polling stations on just about every block. Abstention is frowned upon.

'All revolutionaries'
Reuters talked with more than half a dozen voters before they entered the polls in Havana. None of them knew the candidates on the national slate from their districts.

"What's certain is they are all revolutionaries and that's what matters," said retiree Eduardo Sanchez.

"I vote because I feel I have to, and it doesn't really matter because the deputies have no power anyway," said one young woman, who declined to give her name.

The curious read biographies of candidates posted at the polls, then cast paper ballots in cardboard voting boxes guarded by school students.

Others simply entered the polls and checked a box for the entire slate.

The candidates were equal to the number of positions up for a vote, the only alternative being to not vote for a certain candidate or leave blank or spoil the ballot.

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

HAVANA, Cuba — A unilateral ceasefire declared by the Marxist FARC rebels at the start of peace talks with the Colombian government ended on Sunday after the government refused to join the truce, the group said.

"With pain in my heart, we have to admit that we return to the stage of war that nobody in this country (Colombia) wants," FARC lead negotiator Ivan Marquez told reporters before going into the latest session of the talks aimed at ending Colombia's long, bloody conflict.

---

The FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, declared the ceasefire when the talks began on November 19 in Havana, and gave the government two months to also lay down its arms.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos rejected the ceasefire from the beginning, saying the government would maintain the military pressure to keep FARC at the negotiating table.

Colombian officials have called the ceasefire a sham to gain international favor and accused the rebels of continuing their attacks.

Government forces have continued to attack and kill the rebels in their remote strongholds in the jungles and mountains of Colombia. They say the rebels may be planning a new offensive.

Marquez did not disclose their plans, but urged Santos to reconsider the decision not to lay down arms.

The two sides have been fighting since the formation of the FARC as a communist agrarian movement in 1964 in what is now Latin America's longest-running insurgency and a relic of the Cold War.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced in the conflict, which the FARC says is aimed at ending Colombia's long history of social inequality and the concentration of land and wealth in relatively few hands.

Officials say the FARC has been weakened by a U.S.-backed, 10-year-long government offensive.

But the group still has an estimated 9,000 fighters capable of continuing to inflict damage on Colombia's infrastructure and slow the government's plans to increase foreign investment in mining and oil operations.

The agenda for the talks calls for the two sides to address a number of difficult issues, starting with rural development.

In recent days, they have publicly disagreed about a sweeping land redistribution proposal by the FARC to hand over 25 million hectares (62 million acres), or more than 20 percent of the country's land, to the poor.

Government lead negotiator Humberto de la Calle this week called for a quicker pace to the talks, which Santos has said he wants ended by November. 

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.