Fidel Castro in good health, Brazilian visitor says

Fidel Castro in good health, Brazilian visitor says
HAVANA Wed Jan 28, 2015 6:44pm EST

(Reuters) - Retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro is in good health,
appearing skinny but lucid, a Brazilian theologian who met with him told
official Cuban media on Wednesday.

Castro, 88, who stepped down from power in 2008, has not been seen in
public in a year and his photograph has not appeared in Cuban media
since August, giving rise to speculation about his health.

"The commander (Castro) enjoys very good health is in very good
spirits," the writer and activist Carlos Alberto Libanio Christo, better
known as Friar Betto, told Cuban state television on Wednesday after
meeting Castro in Havana on Tuesday.

The Cuban news agency Prensa Latina quoted Betto as saying Castro looked
thin and took copious notes during their conversation. Castro was lucid
and well-informed on national and international affairs, he said.

Though Castro periodically writes a column, he went silent for several
weeks after his younger brother and current president, Raul Castro, and
U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Dec. 17 they would restore
diplomatic ties.

On Jan. 12, Castro sent a letter to friend and retired Argentine soccer
star Diego Maradona to squelch rumors that he had died. On Monday he
finally commented on U.S. relations, offering lukewarm support for the
agreement his brother reached with Obama.

"I don't trust the policy of the United States, nor have I had an
exchange with them, but this does not mean ... a rejection of a peaceful
solution to conflicts or the dangers of war," Fidel Castro said in a
statement published on Monday on the website of Cuba's Communist Party
newspaper Granma.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Alan Crosby)

Source: Fidel Castro in good health, Brazilian visitor says | Reuters -
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/28/us-cuba-castro-idUSKBN0L12SA20150128