27 July NY Times - Cuba’s Revolution Now Under Two Masters by James McKinley Jr.

For the first time, Raúl Castro, the acting president, gave the traditional revolutionary speech during Cuba’s most important national holiday on Thursday, deepening the widespread feeling that his brother Fidel has slipped into semi-retirement and is unlikely to return. Yet Cuba continues to live in a kind of limbo, with neither brother fully in control of the one-party Socialist state...

Since the Communist Party has yet to officially replace Fidel Castro as the head of state, his presence in the wings and his towering history here continue to exert a strong influence in Cuban politics. That has made it difficult for Raúl Castro to shake up the island’s centralized Soviet-style economy, experts on Cuban politics said, though Raúl’s public remarks on Thursday made it clear he would like to.

He scolded the nation for having to import food when it possessed an abundance of rich land and vowed to increase agricultural production. He also said Cuba was seeking ways to secure more foreign investment, without abandoning Socialism...
27 July Washington Post - Cuba's Call for Economic Detente by Manuel Roig-Franzia.

As one of history's longest-serving political understudies, Raúl Castro often struggled to persuade his all-powerful brother Fidel Castro to open Cuba's moribund economy to more foreign investment.

But Thursday, with Fidel Castro still hidden from public view after intestinal surgery last July and his prospects of returning to power uncertain, the younger brother asserted his desire to push Cuba in a new direction. Speaking at a ceremony commemorating the start of the 54th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, Raúl Castro declared that Cuba is considering opening itself further to foreign investment, allowing business partners to provide this financially strapped nation with "capital, technology or markets."

The younger Castro's remarks, coupled with his unusual admission that the Cuban government needs to pay its vast cadres of state-employed workers more to cover basic needs, amounted to the clearest indication yet of how he might lead this island nation. Castro, who was named interim president last July 31, vowed to partner only with "serious entrepreneurs, upon well-defined legal bases."...
27 July Miami Herald - Raúl Again Offers 'Olive Branch' to U.S. by Frances Robles.

In Raúl Castro's most important speech since he replaced ailing brother Fidel, the interim Cuban leader Thursday bluntly admitted during the island's July 26 celebrations that Cuba faces myriad problems and little hope of quick fixes.

Castro, 76, told the tens of thousands convened in the eastern city of Camagüey that while salaries and food production are too low, inefficiency and prices are way too high. He added that Cuba's days of inefficiency, graft and dependence on foreign imports must come to an end.

Castro, also for the third time, called for a dialogue with Washington and made only passing mention of Fidel -- whose absence at the ceremony marking the 54th anniversary of the start of the Cuban Revolution reinforced the belief that Fidel will not return to active rule after his emergency surgery for intestinal bleeding last July...
Wikipedia:

Fidel Castro

Raul Castro