(22 Sep 2007) SHOTLIST
1. Wide of Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, meeting
2. Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage (screen left) and Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque at table
3. Cutaway of media
4. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro at table
5. Wide of meeting
6. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Carlos Lage, Cuban Vice President:
"Fidel continues to recuperate. It's a productive recuperation as we can see in the press."
7. Cutaway of media
8. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Felipe Perez Roque, Cuban Foreign Minister:
"Fidel is recovering with discipline and I think that he's having a productive work period, reading, studying, writing and keeping up with and participating in the country's principal decisions on which he is consulted."
9. Ministers posing for photographs
STORYLINE
Fidel Castro is keeping busy and in the midst of a "productive recuperation," two top Cuban officials said Friday, even though it has been more than three months since the government has released photographs or videos showing his progress.
Vice President Carlos Lage told reporters in Cuba's capital that a series of often exhaustively lengthy essays Castro has released every few days since late March are evidence his health remains strong.
"Fidel continues to recuperate. It's a productive recuperation as we can see in the press," said Lage, apparently referring to the publication of Castro's "Reflections of the Commander in Chief" writings, which appear in state newspapers.
Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque seconded that sentiment, saying "Fidel is recovering with discipline and I think that he's having a productive work period, reading, studying, writing and keeping up with and participating in the country's principal decisions."
The Cuban officials made the comments after a meeting of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, a bloc that involves left-leaning allies Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, and promotes socialist trade initiatives and cooperation to counter US-backed free trade plans.
Castro has not been seen in public since July 31, 2006, when he announced that emergency intestinal surgery was forcing him to step down in favour of a provisional government headed by his younger brother Raul.
For months, official photographs and videos showed Castro's recovery, but no new images have surfaced since he appeared in an interview on Cuban television June 5.
Recovering in an undisclosed location, Castro's condition and exact ailment are state secrets, though he wrote in one of his essays that he had
actually undergone multiple surgeries, at least one of which went poorly, delaying his recovery.
Castro also suggested he can't be bothered to trim his beard and comb his hair so as to appear in official images, possibly explaining why none have been released of late.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Castro's close friend and ally, said Friday in Brazil that the Cuban leader "has a little problem but he can live
another 100 years with this little problem."
Castro had "three operations, and he's 81, imagine that. They changed almost all the blood with transfusions," Chavez said. "Fidel is alive because he is Fidel."
Back in Havana, at a separate gathering hours later, Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban parliament, said he had no new information on Castro's
health, but that "I trust Hugo Chavez a lot ... he knows what he's saying."
Alarcon said in March that he would nominate Castro to run for re-election to parliament ahead of elections next spring, the first step toward his
securing another term as Cuba's president.
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