Odds and ends

• Still confusing: With the Party Congress about to begin, the PCC website still places Fidel Castro in its top post, First Secretary of the Central Committee. But weeks ago, Fidel let on that he had left the post due to his 2006 illness and never thought “the formalism of an express resignation” was necessary. Maybe from the Party’s point of view, it’s not official until the “formalism” has been completed, presumably this weekend.

• The International Republican Institute releases a survey of public opinion (pdf) in Cuba.

• An Irish researcher discovers a 1959 letter in which la Sra. de Batista, writing from temporary digs in the Waldorf in New York, asked Ireland’s President for permission to reside in Ireland so that the family could “be all together again.” Other than an acknowledgement, no reply turned up.