We don’t hear a lot from good old Fidel Castro, but when we do, it’s always something interesting. Take this piece of new: the Mexican government is angry because the Cuban leader is accusing them of keeping the 411 about the swine flu epidemic under wraps so as not to mess up Obama’s visit to Mexico. In a piece published in Cuba’s Granma newspaper, Fidel says that because of this deception, Cubans are now paying the price as citizens there were infected:

Today the presence of the H1N1 flu virus was detected in Cuba. The carrier is a young Mexican citizen who studies medicine in our country. The only thing that can be confirmed is that it didn’t come from the CIA, it came from Mexico [...]

The Mexican authorities did not inform the world of the presence of the virus while awaiting Obama’s visit, and now they are threatening us with suspending that of President Calderón, previously suspended for other, understandable reasons unconnected to the epidemic.

Mexico is emphatically denying this accusation, and Mexican president Felipe Calderon shot back yesterday that he “acted with determination, with promptness and with one single priority, which is and will always be to protect the health and the life of Mexicans.”

On the other hand, the Mexican Secretary for Foreign Relations (SRE) says that Castro’s accusations are making things a bit, well, weird for the relations between the two countries. Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, SRE, says that the declarations “make bilateral relations awkward”.

Via / Granma and Times of India