• A proposal to establish term limits would require a change to Cuban Constitution but Raúl Castro underlined that they could begin "gradually, even before the Constitution is changed". He did not care to explain how or when or whether it would apply to high government levels
• Fidel Castro ruled for 49 years and his brother succeeded him during the last five. Raul Castro is 80 and his first vicepresident José Ramón Machado Ventura is 81.

Havana, Jan.30.─ President Raul Castro defended Cuba's one-party political system as a bulwark against U.S. imperialism and said it would remain as it is in a speech on Sunday to a Communist Party conference.

He also said previously announced plans to put term limits on the country's leaders were not fully official, but could gradually go ahead.

This weekend's conference, which is the first in the party's history, came amid wide-ranging reforms that have given Cubans the right to open small businesses and to buy and sell cars, but have included no promises of significant political change.

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• For China's rise to continue, the country needs to move away from the model that has served it so well
• China's bloody past has taught the Communist Party to fear chaos above all. But history's other lesson is that those who cling to absolute power end up with none

Jan.28.─ Only 20 years ago, China was a long way from being a global superpower. After the protests in Tiananmen Square led to a massacre in 1989, its economic reforms were under threat from conservatives and it faced international isolation. Then in early 1992, like an emperor undertaking a progress, the late Deng Xiaoping set out on a "southern tour" of the most reform-minded provinces. An astonishing endorsement of reform, it was a masterstroke from the man who made modern China. The economy has barely looked back since.

Compared with the rich world's recent rocky times, China's progress has been relentless. Yet not far beneath the surface, society is churning. Recent village unrest in Wukan in Guangdong, one province that Deng toured all those years ago; ethnic strife this week in Tibetan areas of Sichuan; the gnawing fear of a house-price crash: all are signs of the centrifugal forces making the Communist Party's job so hard.

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The ruler of the poorest country in the Middle East departs at last

Sanaa, Jan.28.─ Ali Abdullah Saleh (photo) ended his 33 years as president of Yemen on January 22nd and boarded a plane to Oman and may go on to America. This has brought to a close, at least temporarily, a violent power struggle.

Riven by civil strife for many years, opposition groups rose up in open revolt a year ago, following the example of youths in Tunisia and Egypt. Mr Saleh, weakened by an injury from a bomb attack in June, clung to power. For months Yemen appeared in danger of sliding into bloody chaos. Mr Saleh's loyal troops fought not only student protesters but also tribal bands and defecting soldiers, leaving extremist groups to set up strongholds in the north and south of the country.

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