Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

US has no idea on Castro health
02-01-2007

WASHINGTON, USA (AFP): The United States admitted Wednesday it had no idea about Cuban President Fidel Castro's state of health, hours after Cuban television broadcast new pictures of its ailing communist nemesis.

"We don't actually have any idea what the status of his health is," State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said, despite previous predictions by a senior US official that Castro's days may be numbered.

"The Cuban regime is surprisingly disinterested in providing the US government with assessments of Fidel Castro's health," Casey told reporters.

"I can't tell you whether these new images are significant or not and I think it's rather speculative for anybody who is not an intimate part of the regime to try and give you one."

Latest footage broadcast Tuesday appeared to support official claims that Castro's recovery from surgery is going well, though it remains unclear whether he will resume the leadership he handed to his brother Raul six months ago.

The 80-year-old communist leader, who has ruled Cuba for five decades, was shown with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, looking healthier than in the previous footage broadcast on October 28.

Earlier in January, US spy chief and nominee for deputy secretary of state John Negroponte said: "Fidel Castro's days or months seem to be numbered."

In December, Negroponte was quoted by The Washington Post as saying "everything we see indicates it will not be much longer… months, not years" for the revolutionary icon.

Casey added it was important that Cuba give its people "the opportunity to freely express their views and freely choose their leaders, which is something that Fidel Castro has denied them the entire time he's been in office."