Castro says he is better in 80th bday message

HAVANA, Aug 13: A Cuban newspaper today published the first photographs of Fidel Castro since his stomach surgery and the Cuban leader said he had stabilized ''considerably'' but was not out of the woods.

He sent a message to Cubans on his 80th birthday that was published by youth daily Juventud Rebelde with four waist-up photographs of him wearing a sweat suit and speaking on the telephone, apparently sitting in a chair.

Castro has not appeared in public since ceding power to his younger brother Raul Castro on July 31 after undergoing an operation to stop intestinal bleeding.

One photograph showed Castro holding a supplement on him printed yesterday by the Communist Party newspaper Granma, an apparent move to show the pictures were current.

''To say the stability has improved considerably is not to tell a lie. To say that the period of recovery will be short and there is now no risk, would be absolutely incorrect,'' Castro said in the message posted on the newspaper's Web site.

''I suggest you be optimistic and at the same time always prepared to receive bad news,'' he said.

''The country is running well and will continue to do so,'' the man who has led Cuba for 47 years assured his people.

Details of Castro's health are considered a state secret, so there has been little information about his condition or even confirmation he was alive.

While Castro's condition appears to be stable, it is not known whether he will be able to resume his government duties.

Cuban officials have said the workaholic Castro, whose intestinal bleeding was caused by overexertion, will have to lessen his workload if he is to recover.

Raul Castro, 75, has not appeared in public either, adding to the uncertainty over the political future of one of the world's last communist outposts. A separate hand-written note on the Web site signed by Castro and dated at 12:39 am today morning, expressed encouragement to five Cubans jailed in the United States for espionage.

Some 3,000 mainly young Cubans wished Castro happy birthday at midnight Saturday during a five-hour concert in his honor on the ''Anti-Imperialist Stage'' opposite the US diplomatic mission on Havana's Malecon seafront boulevard.

''Fidel, Fidel, long live Fidel,'' they chanted.

''We hope he gets better. For all oppressed people, Cuba is an example that socialism is possible,'' said Juan Carlos Cruz, a Bolivian studying medicine in Cuba for free. Students bused to the show held Cuban, Venezuelan and Bolivian flags.

CUBANS URGED NOT TO FLEE

Castro is the last of the key Cold War-era figures on the world stage and has survived through the administrations of 10 US presidents, despite their long efforts to oust him from power.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Castro's closest ally in Latin America, said yesterday he would go to Havana, with gifts and a cake in hand, to celebrate Castro's birthday, but had not yet been seen.

Since Castro's surgery, US President George W Bush has urged Cubans to push for a democratic government.

But at the same time, the White House, caught up in a campaign against illegal immigration, has urged Cubans not to hop in boats and cross the 90 miles of water to Florida.

An electronic message board installed six months ago on the front of the US mission in Havana, but blocked from view by 138 Cuban flag posts, urged Cubans during the concert to stay on the island and work for change.

Michael Parmly, head of the US mission, briefly attended the birthday celebration, standing amid the crowd while the music played.

REUTERS