Brazil's Lula says he will work for 'democracy in Cuba'

BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP): Brazil's leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said he will work "for democracy in Cuba" and "against the (US economic) blockade" of the communist-run island, the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported Saturday."We have a lot to do for democracy in Cuba. We must help in the struggle against the US economic blockade (sanctions). Brazil has a chance to help normalize Cuba's relations," Lula told the daily in Rome, where he attended the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

Lula, of the Workers' Party, made his remarks after meeting at Brazil's embassy in Rome with Cuban National Assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon. The Brazilian president has a cordial relationship, but no great political kinship, with Cuban President Fidel Castro, whose lone major ally in the region is Venezuela's leftist-populist President Hugo Chavez.Cuba is the only one-party communist state in the Americas.