Wednesday 14 July 2010

Sometimes newspaper columnists have to correct their mistakes - even if they are Fidel Castro


Most newspaper columnists have made predictions that have later proved to be way off the mark and have had to own up to their errors.
Now they have been joined by the former Cuban president Fidel Castro who wrote in his column in Granma, a Cuban government newspaper, that there would be an American and Israeli attack on Iran for refusing to allow its ships to be inspected, before the quarter finals of the World Cup in South Africa.
The New York Times notes that in a new column published in Granma Castro admits his mistake and wrote: “I should be self-critical since I made the mistake of affirming in my [column] of June 27 that the conflict would break out on Thursday, Friday or Saturday at the latest.”
The NYT adds: "Mr. Castro explained, he had not realized at the time that his copy of the latest resolution on United Nations sanctions against Iran was incomplete. 'I was working with the latest material on the issue produced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba and the document did not include two crucial paragraphs.'
"Mr. Castro blamed the mistake on an unnamed research assistant in the Cuban government, writing: 'Apparently, after many hours of hard work making copies of every document, somebody at the Ministry fell asleep' and provided him with a misleading copy of the resolution that made imminent war appear inevitable."

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