Fidel Castro is showcasing a theory long popular both among the far left and far right: that the shadowy Bilderberg Group has become a kind of global government, controlling not only international politics and economics, but even culture.

The 84-year-old former Cuban president published an article Wednesday that used three of the only eight pages in the Communist Party newspaper Granma to quote -- largely verbatim -- from a 2006 book by Lithuanian-born writer Daniel Estulin.

Estulin's work, "The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club," argues that the international group largely runs the world. It has held a secretive annual forum of prominent politicians, thinkers and businessmen since it was founded in 1954 at the Bilderberg Hotel in Holland.

Castro offered no comment on the excerpts other than to describe Estulin as honest and well-informed and to call his book a "fantastic story."

Estulin's book, as quoted by Castro, described "sinister cliques and the Bilderberg lobbyists" manipulating the public "to install a world government that knows no borders and is not accountable to anyone but its own self."

rom June 3 - 6, 2010, around 130 of the world’s most powerful people including heads of state, royalty, international bankers and senior businessmen will meet together in Sitges, Spain for the annual Bilderberg Group conference. The Bilderberg Group meets in secret for off the record discussions on world issues under the Chatham House Rule, whereby participants are not allowed to disclose what was said, and representatives from the media who are invited are sworn to secrecy.

Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands founded the group with their first meeting in 1954. Well known Bilderberg attendees in recent years include David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. Bilderbergers in the UK include former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, David Miliband, Ed Balls and Chancellor George Osborne.

Despite its secrecy, several independent journalists such as Jim Tucker and Daniel Estulin have managed to report on Bilderberg’s activites. Through inside sources such as attendees assistants and hotel staff, they have been able to obtain details of what was said during meetings, and underscore the aims and agenda of Bilderberg, and have even predicted the 2008 economic downturn from knowing what was discussed at Bilderberg meetings.

The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg Conference, or Bilderberg Club is an unofficial, annual, invitation-only conference of around 130 guests, most of whom are persons of great influence in the fields of politics, business, banking, and media.

The group meets annually at hotels or resorts throughout the world‹for two consecutive years in Europe followed by a year in the United States or Canada. This tradition appeared to be broken in 2008 when the meeting was held in Chantilly, Virginia, so as to give easier access to those associated with the US elections. The 2009 Bilderberg meeting took place from 14-16 May in Athens, Greece.

The original Bilderberg conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem in The Netherlands, from 29 May to 31 May 1954. It was initiated by several people, including Denis Healey and Józef Retinger, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, who proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting understanding between the cultures of the United States and Western Europe.

Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who agreed to promote the idea, together with Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland, and the head of Unilever at that time, the Dutchman Paul Rijkens. Bernhard in turn contacted Walter Bedell Smith, then head of the CIA, who asked Eisenhower adviser Charles Douglas Jackson to deal with the suggestion.

he Bilderberg Secretariat proclaims the conferences to be '...private in order to encourage frank and open discussion'. Frank and open discussion is a good thing in any forum but when those doing the discussing are some of the very most powerful financiers and media tycoons in the world it begs the question: If what they discuss is for the good of ordinary people why not publicise it! Isn't it a perverted use of the word 'open' when no-one can find out what they're saying?

When such rich and powerful people meet up in secret, with military intelligence managing their security, with hardly a whisper escaping of what goes on inside, people are right to be suspicious. But the true power of Bilderberg comes from the fact that participants are in a bubble, sealed off from reality and the devastating implications on the ground of the black-science economic solutions on the table.

No, it's not a 'conspiracy'. The world's leading financiers and foreign policy strategists don't get together at Bilderberg to draw up their 'secret plans for the future'. It's subtler than that. These meetings create an artificial 'consensus' in an attempt to spellbind visiting politicians and and other men of influence. Blair has fallen for this hook, line and sinker. It's about reinforcing - often to the very people who are on the edge of condemning Globalisation - the illusion that Globalisation is 'good', 'popular' and that it's inevitable.

The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an annual, unofficial, invitation-only conference of around 130 guests, most of whom are persons of influence in the fields of politics, banking, business, the military and media. Each conference is closed to the public and the press.

The original conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem in The Netherlands, from 29 May to 31 May 1954. It was initiated by several people, including Józef Retinger, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, who proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting atlanticism – better understanding between the cultures of the United States and Western Europe in order to foster cooperation on political, economic, and defense issues.[1] Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who agreed to promote the idea, together with Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland, and the head of Unilever at that time, Dutchman Paul Rijkens. Bernhard in turn contacted Walter Bedell Smith, then head of the CIA, who asked Eisenhower adviser Charles Douglas Jackson to deal with the suggestion.[2] The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one of each to represent conservative and liberal points of view.[1] Fifty delegates from 11 countries in Western Europe attended the first conference along with 11 Americans.[3]

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