Castro says Bush craving for affection in Albania

HAVANA, Jun 12 (Reuters) Cuban leader Fidel Castro said US President George W Bush is so unpopular he had to travel to Albania and Bulgaria to get attention free of protests.

''Bush is craving for affection,'' the convalescing Castro wrote in his latest column entitled ''The tyrant visits Tirana'' published today by Cuba's Communist Party newspaper Granma.

''He really enjoyed his reception without protests in Bulgaria,'' Castro, 80 and sidelined from power by illness, said of his ideological nemesis.

Bush, whose popularity is at its lowest due to the Iraq war, delighted Albanians on Sunday by supporting independence for the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo.

Yesterday, ending an eight-day European tour met by street demonstrations, Bush courted popularity in Sofia by backing the release of five Bulgarian nurses facing the death penalty by firing squad in Libya for infecting children with HIV.

Castro has not appeared in public since having emergency bowel surgery last July. To reassert himself in Cuba, he began writing columns from his convalescence quarters in March.

His vitriolic musings, read repeatedly on Cuba's state media, mainly target Bush, who since 2004 has tightened U.S.

sanctions aimed at undermining Castro's one-party government.

Castro handed over provisional power to his brother Raul on July 31. He has not written about his political future.

REUTERS RKM HT1855