|
 HAVANA (AP) - Wealthy cigar aficionados toasted the health of ailing leader Fidel Castro and shelled out $728,000 at an annual auction of elaborate humidors that for the first time did not bear the signature of the 80-year-old revolutionary.
Proceeds from the Friday night auction of five wooden-and-bronze humidors stuffed with hundreds of the island's exclusive hand-rolled cigars will go to Cuba's health care system.
The amount raised was similar to past years. But this year's auction, during a dinner at the close of the annual Habanos cigar festival, was the first in the festival's nine years that Castro had not signed the humidors. It was the fourth year he did not attend the closing gala dinner in person.
|