Santiago de Cuba  - President Raul Castro declared Thursday that the Cuban revolution after 50 years was "stronger than ever despite the obsessive and revengeful hate of the United States."

Despite the current difficult times, the revolutionary movement had moved barely a millimetre from its principles, the younger brother of the ailing revolutionary leader Fidel Castro said at the formal celebration of the anniversary.

Havana - As Cuba prepared to officially commemorate 50 years of socialism later Thursday, President Raul Castro declared that socialism had "not failed in any way."

In a radio address, the younger brother of Fidel Castro, the father of the Cuban revolution who is too ill to appear in public at any celebrations, disputed remarks by the "enemy ... that socialism has been a failure."

Buenos Aires/Havana  - Cuba may be c

Havana  - Collapsed political systems, presidents who came and went, wars and attacks, broken alliances, rebuilt countries - 50 years of history unrolled across Latin America.

Yet Cuba and its revolutionary tradition have survived all of this, standing by its socialist continuity in the face of historical change.

Havana  - Cuba plans to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its socialist revolution later Thursday in a somewhat subdued mood, in the face of the worldwide financial crisis and ongoing recovery from three consecutive hurricanes.

Havana - "I believe in you."

With those words from his 2007 "Message to the Communist Youth," an ailing Fidel Castro emphasized the importance of the large sector of Cuban society that has known only the socialist system, and whose hands hold the key to the future of the island.

Judging solely by the numbers, they're doing pretty well. There are more than half a million members of the Communist Youth Union, the new generation of the Communist Party of Cuba.