Wednesday, January 3, 2007

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sent gifts and wishes for a full recovery to ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, his friend and close political ally, on the New Year's Day anniversary of Cuba's revolution, official media reported Tuesday.

"Along with wishes for a full recovery, and congratulations to him and the Cuban people" for the anniversary, Chavez sent Fidel Castro Venezuelan handicrafts and the complete works of Simon Bolivar, among a number of other books, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma said.

Fidel Castro, who is 80 and underwent an operation on July 27, handed over power temporarily to his brother and defense chief Raul Castro, 75, on July 31.

The iconic elder Cuban leader, who has been in power since 1959, has not been seen in public for five months and few medical updates have been made public since his reported intestinal surgery in July.

Chavez, whose cut-rate oil has been critical to keeping Cuba's communist regime afloat, has made occasional upbeat remarks about Fidel's recovery.

In Cuba, Fidel Castro's health is being treated as a state secret.

But in the year marking the 48th anniversary of Castro's ousting of dictator Fulgencio Batista, his absence at a December 2 military parade stunned people and sparked speculation he might be seriously ill or near death.

Last week, he was absent from the National Assembly's last session of the year, marking only the second time in 30 years that Castro had missed an assembly meeting.

Dissident groups opposed to Castro's rule generally see his continued absence as proof he will never return to Cuba's helm full-time.

US Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte told The Washington Post on December 15 that "everything we see indicates it will not be much longer, ... months, not years," for Fidel Castro.

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