More vigorous Castro on view in television images

Cuba: President Fidel Castro appeared more vigorous yesterday in the first television images of the Cuban leader to be broadcast…

Cuba:President Fidel Castro appeared more vigorous yesterday in the first television images of the Cuban leader to be broadcast in Cuba in four months, adding weight to reports that he has put his health crisis behind him.

Mr Castro was talking animatedly, standing in a tracksuit during a meeting on Saturday with Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh.

Mr Castro (80) has not appeared in public since emergency bowel surgery forced him to hand over power 10 months ago to his brother, Raul, for the first time since coming to power in a 1959 revolution.

But he looked healthier and more alert than in the last video images shown of him in Cuba on January 30th, during a visit by his leftist ally Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. He hugged Mr Manh warmly at the end of the two-hour meeting.

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"Vietnam is a country that we will never forget," said Mr Castro, who visited Hanoi in 1973 in the midst of the Vietnam War with the United States.

Mr Manh said Mr Castro spoke about Cuba's "energy revolution" to save electricity, and they discussed the situation in Latin America. "He was very happy. I was overcome with emotion. He spoke about many things. They were very deep," Mr Manh said later at a meeting with Cuban vice-president Carlos Lage.

A senior Cuban official said on Friday that Mr Castro had almost recovered fully from several operations for an undisclosed intestinal condition that put his life at risk last year. But National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon, speaking to CNN, gave no indication of when or if Castro might return to governing Cuba. - ( Reuters)