Castro continues to attack Forbes

Cuban leader Fidel Castro continued his offensive earlier this week against Forbes magazine, which earlier listed his net worth as $900 million in a ranking of the richest government leaders in the world.

The Xinhua news agency reported, “‘They cannot remain quiet. We must make them speak,’ Castro said during a seven-hour program, his second television show on the topic within 10 days, demanding the U.S government and the Forbes magazine apologize for the ‘lies.’

“In a May 5 article named ‘Fortunes Of Kings, Queens And Dictators’, Forbes said Castro was the seventh richest head of state in the world, ahead of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, who allegedly has around 500 million dollars.

“Castro made the remarks during Wednesday’s ‘Round Table,’ a daily public affairs program.

“In a previous speech, Castro said he would step down from the post he has occupied for more than 40 years, if anyone, including the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and all banks in the world, could prove he had even one dollar in an overseas bank.”

Forbes has said its estimate came from control of state-owned businesses in Cuba.

Although these rankings always sell a lot of issues, the methodology of how the numbers are determined has always bothered me.