Recovering Castro says worst is over, though no return yet

AILING Cuban leader Fidel Castro said in a new statement which was released yesterday that he has lost more than 41 pounds in about a month since undergoing intestinal surgery but he added the “most critical moment has been left behind”.

“Today I am recovering at a satisfactory rhythm,” read the statement, published in the Communist Party daily Granma.

The statement was accompanied by 10 photographs of Castro during his convalescence. In all of them he is sitting up and wearing either short-sleeved navy blue or light-blue pajamas and in several, he is reading or writing.