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Some Americans embrace their lives in Cuba, holding to socialist ideals *** HAVANA - The wall of windows at Lorna Burdsall's seventh floor apartment overlooks a bay ringed by trash. The vintage red elevator, installed before Fidel Castro seized power, is decrepit. Still, the American widow of "Red Beard" - the socialist revolutionary who went on to become Cuba's top intelligence chief - says her 47 years in the Caribbean country have given her few complaints. "The heat is one of the few things that I haven't gotten used to in Cuba," says Burdsall, 73, apologizing for not hearing the doorbell at first because she had retreated to her air-conditioned bedroom.

Burdsall, who moved to Cuba in 1955, is one of more than a dozen Americans who call this communist island home, still clinging to the ideals of a socialist revolution as capitalism expands its hold around the globe. "I would like to be a good communist but I don't think they exist," the white-haired fiery grandmother says. "Socialism, however, is a good step toward that perfect society; it's an interim."***

With timeline of Casto's increased isolation - Cuba's Castro Calls Mexico's Fox a Liar*** HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba's relations with long- time ally Mexico reached a new low on Monday after President Fidel Castro repeatedly called President Vicente Fox a liar, and made public a private conversation between them to prove it. Mexico reacted swiftly, with Fox's spokesman, Rodolfo Elizondo, decrying the playing of a recording of the two presidents talking confidentially as "unacceptable" but saying Mexico would maintain diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Castro, speaking before a national TV audience, insisted Fox lied about the Cuban leader's hasty departure last month from a U.N. aid summit in Monterrey, Mexico. Cuba said at the time that Mexico, working on behalf of the United States, pressured Castro to either stay away from the summit or make himself scarce before President Bush (news - web sites) arrived. Mexican President Vicente Fox and Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda both denied pressuring Castro to leave. "They were all lying left and right," Castro said.

The Cuban president played a tape of a private telephone conversation he had with Fox on the eve of the summit, in which Fox clearly urged Castro to leave the meeting early and urged him "not to attack the United States or President Bush." On the tape Fox asks Castro to make his presentation at the summit and to return to Cuba on Thursday "so that you don't make Friday complicated for me." Bush was scheduled to arrive on Friday. Making public the tape was a clear break with presidential protocol. Castro said the aftermath "of telling these truths could be that diplomatic relations are severed." ***