Fidel Castro meets with Venezuelan president

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro met here Saturday with visiting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to mark the 19th anniversary of the first trip to Havana by late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. According to the official site Cubadebate (www.cubadebate.cu), during the meeting, Castro and Maduro evoked the figure and the ideals of the deceased Bolivarian president, who held an intimate friendship with Cuban historical leader. Cubadebate published images of Castro and Maduro, in sports wear and analyzing a copy of the map used by Marshal Sucre during the Ayacucho battle, which put an end to Spanish domination in South America. Chavez visited Cuba for the first time in 1994, when he was invited to deliver a lecture about the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement. During his stay on the island was born a close friendship between Chavez and Castro, which strengthened after Chavez's presidential victory in 1998 and lasted until his death on March 5, 2013. In his Twitter account, Maduro wrote that he and Castro also marked the nine years of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), a regional economic and social integration bloc promoted by Havana and Caracas.