Cuban President Fidel Castro says he has started putting on weight again, in his first interview since the 80-year-old communist leader fell ill and adding to growing evidence he is recovering from life-threatening surgery.
"I lost 41 pounds, but I'm putting weight back on - already almost half of what I lost," he told Argentine journalist, lawmaker and friend Miguel Bonasso.
"You have to do things one step at a time. You must remember that the machine being repaired is 80 years old," Castro joked, regarding the pace of his recovery.
The interview with leftist Argentine newspaper Pagina 12 showed that Castro was well enough to get out of bed to greet his visitor, but gave no indication whether he would appear at the summit of Non-Aligned developing nations under way in Havana.
Photographs of the interview showed a gaunt-looking Castro in a dressing gown and pajamas chatting with Bonasso at a table about a book of 100 hours of interviews the Cuban leader has been editing during his illness.
"I wanted to finish editing it because I did not know how much time I had left," he told Mr Bonasso.
Castro has not appeared in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in late July for an undisclosed illness that forced him to hand over power temporarily to his brother Raul Castro for the first time in 47 years.
In messages to the Cuban people, Castro has said the worst of his health crisis is over but that his recovery will take a long time. Cuban officials have denied that he has stomach cancer.
Top aides said Castro was no longer lounging in bed and was back on the telephone giving orders. They said he might appear at the summit of 116 nations if doctors permit.