Castro breaks silence on 'honest' Obama

Ailing ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro has broken a five-week silence with an essay in which he calls US president Barack Obama “honest” in his ideas.

The 82-year-old, who Argentine president Cristina Fernandez yesterday, wrote in a statement posted on a government website hours later that he “did not have the slightest doubt of the honesty of Obama ... when he expresses his ideas”.