Even Castro turns against the Cuban model and the BBC wail...

Feel the BBC's pain as they report:

'Cuban model no longer works, says Fidel Castro

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has said the Cuban model no longer works.

He made the comment in an interview with a US journalist, who asked him if Cuba's model was still worth exporting to other countries.

In a previous interview with the same journalist, he criticised Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for what he called his anti-Semitic attitudes.

Mr Castro also questioned his own actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Mr Castro was speaking to Jeffrey Goldberg, a journalist with The Atlantic magazine based in Washington, DC, whom he personally invited to Cuba.

"The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," he told him.

With this comment, it is clear Mr Castro is not abandoning the principles of socialist revolution, says the BBC's Will Grant: rather, it is an overt acceptance by the 84-year-old former leader that state control of the economy in Cuba is gradually being loosened.

The comment came as the current Cuban leader, Fidel's younger brother, Raul Castro, is reducing the state's control of the economy and allowing private ownership on the communist island.

Last month, Raul Castro announced to the National Assembly that small businesses would now be permitted and small business owners would have the right to employ and pay employees.

Recent examples include hairdressers, who are now allowed to run their businesses as private entities, as well as a growing number of taxis and buses. Agriculture and tourism have also opened up to private investment. '

Cuban socialism is not worthwhile exporting admits Castro, I wonder if the Today programme will acknowledge this?

I also note that the BBC report that:

'Over the course of a five-hour discussion, Mr Castro "repeatedly returned to his excoriation of anti-Semitism", and criticised Mr Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust.

"The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust," the former president said.

Mr Castro said that Iran could further the cause of peace by "acknowledging the 'unique' history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence", Mr Goldberg wrote'

What is the world coming to when a BBC hero goes off message in such a way?