Castro says drug companies charge far too muc h for medicine

In an impassioned speech at a session celebrating the 50th anniversary of the U.N health agency, Castro also condemned growing global trade liberalization and ``an economy that grows by itself and for itself, like a cancer.''

He decried the U.S. economic embargo against his island nation, but said the sanctions have only ``led to the multiplication of our strengths and our will to survive.'' Castro also deplored high death and disease rates in developing countries, and pointed to inflated drug prices by pharmaceutical companies as the culprit.

``The control of patents and markets by the big transnational companies allows them to raise prices over 10 times above production costs,'' Castro said. ``Either we defeat AIDS, or AIDS will devastate several Third World countries.''

The 70-year-old Cuban leader was given a standing ovation as he entered the hall of the 191-nation World Health Assembly -- the annual meeting of the World Health Organization.

During his weeklong visit, Castro will address the World Trade Organization when leaders gather to mark half a century of the global trading system, born at a meeting in Havana, Cuba, in 1948.

The Cuban leader and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton are staying in the same hotel, but the hotel manager said any clash of ideologies would be ``no problem.'' ``Everyone is in their own place and it works very well,'' said Herbert Schott, director of Geneva's luxury Hotel Intercontinental.

President Clinton is due in Geneva for a few hours Monday evening to address the WTO.