Cuba denies political crisis

(First Edition)

HAVANA (Reuter) - Cuba's Communist government yesterday denied it had an internal political crisis and said it would not bow to US moves to tighten a 30-year-old trade embargo. 'No other society in the hemisphere is more stable than ours, no government has more popular support,' the Cuban Communist Party newspaper, Granma, said in an editorial.

Diplomats said it appeared to be an attempt by the government to play down the political impact of the recent replacement of a leading Communist Party figure and close aide of President Fidel Castro. Last week, Party sources said Carlos Aldana was being replaced as head of the Party's departments of ideology and international relations because of 'serious personal errors' and 'deficiencies in his work.'