Cuba's Castro appears in public - Not ill
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Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has reappeared in public, meeting at a Havana hotel with a Venezuelan politician, refuting persistent rumours that the former leader was on his death bed.
Castro, who led Communist Cuba for almost five decades before illness sidelined him, "is very well," Venezuela's former vice-president Elias Jaua said on Sunday after meeting the revolutionary icon. The 86-year-old Castro "is very well, very lucid," Jaua, a loyal supporter of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose government financially supports the Cuban regime with cut-rate oil and aid, told reporters. After the five-hour meeting on Saturday, Castro accompanied Jaua back to the Hotel Nacional, and then posed for pictures with hotel staff. "We are going to have Fidel with us for a long time," said hotel manager Antonio Martinez. Martinez said the former Cuban president was accompanied by his wife Dalia Soto del Valle during the visit to the hotel. |
