Castro health improves, regains weight

Cuban President Fidel Castro is well enough to get out of his hospital bed and has started putting on weight again, according to an interview published in an Argentine newspaper yesterday.

The 80-year-old leader has not appeared in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in late July, handing power temporarily to his brother Raul.

Photos in leftist daily Pagina 12 showed a thin-looking Castro wearing a dressing gown. He told Argentine journalist and lawmaker Miguel Bonasso: "I lost 41 pounds (20 kilograms), but I'm putting weight back on already almost half of what I lost."

In his first media interview since the surgery, Castro said he was still able to give orders. "I can still talk pretty loudly if I want to," he was quoted as saying.

"You have to do things one step at a time. You have to remember that the machine being repaired is 80 years old," he joked, regarding the pace of his recovery.

He told the interviewer he was optimistic that Venezuela, which is led by his leftist ally Hugo Chavez, could secure a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council. "They're not going to be able to block its entry," he said. "Chavez has been building an indestructible model. He doesn't represent an extreme form of socialism, but a realistic one," he added.

Photo appearance on TV

Castro made an appearance of sorts on the sidelines of the Nonaligned Movement summit when state television showed photos of him chatting with Bonasso, raising expectations he'll meet with visiting heads of state before the week's end.

Castro was almost certain to meet with his close friend Chavez, who initially was scheduled to arrive in Havana on Wednesday morning but whose whereabouts were still unknown by the evening.

Chavez has already met with Castro three times since the veteran Cuban leader announced on July 31 that he had undergone intestinal surgery and was temporarily ceding power to his 75-year-old brother, Defence Minister Raul Castro.

By Wednesday evening, neither Venezuelan or Cuban authorities knew where Chavez was, raising the possibility that Chavez arrived privately without notifying the news media something he has done often in the past.

Another key Castro ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales arrived before dawn hours Thursday. State television showed him being met at the airport by Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage.

Taking on his brother's role as host, Raul Castro met on Wednesday with Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and held separate meetings with presidents Nguyen Minh Triet of Viet Nam and Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria.

State television showed photos of an animated Fidel Castro wearing pyjamas and chatting with Argentine Congressman Miguel Bonasso on Wednesday as they sat at a table. The news programme "Mesa Redonda" said Bonasso, a frequent visitor to Cuba, had come as a personal representative of Argentine President Nestor Kirchner.

Cuba said Argentina is welcome to rejoin the movement. President Carlos Menem, a close US ally, pulled Argentina out in the early 1990s, saying it was no longer a Third World nation, but the country was humbled by the peso crash and a subsequent economic crisis.

Source: China Daily