Cuban President Fidel Castro has recovered so well from surgery that he is now strong enough to play baseball, his Venezuelan counterpart said after meeting the pajama-clad convalescent strongman.
"He is more alive than ever, he walks, he sings and he is even ready to play baseball," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told journalists after a private meeting with Castro at an undisclosed location where the Cuban leader is recovering from an intestinal operation he underwent in July.
"He looks better every time,"Chavez said. Chavez has visited the 80-year-old Cuban leader on several occasions in recent weeks.
State-run television showed pictures of Thursday's meeting, in which Castro, clad in Burgundy pajamas and a dark bathrobe, was seen in standing and smiling.
The meeting took place while leaders from the developing world gathered in Havana for a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
Castro has said he would meet dignitaries attending the summit, which concludes today.
His first guest from the NAM gathering was Argentine lawmaker Miguel Bonasso, a friend and staunch admirer who said after Wednesday's meeting that the communist leader was "as lucid and sharp as ever."
Writing in the Argentine Pagina12 daily, Bonasso quoted Castro as telling him: "I lost 41 pounds [19kg] ... But I'm putting the weight back on. Nearly half what I lost already."
The lawmaker wrote that Castro spoke to him softly, but at times gave orders to aides in a loud voice "to demonstrate he can go back to giving speeches any time now."
"You see, I can speak in a very loud tone of voice if I want to," Castro was quoted as saying.
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