Fidel Castro says doesn't doubt Obama 'honesty'

HAVANA – Fidel Castro watched the U.S. inauguration on television and says he doesn't doubt Barack Obama's "honesty," breaking a monthlong silence with an essay published Thursday in Cuba's state-run press.

The comments by the former Cuban president were released after a meeting Wednesday with visiting Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, who told reporters that "Fidel believes in Obama."

The meeting with Fernandez dispelled persistent rumors that the 82-year-old Castro had suffered a stroke or lapsed into a coma in recent days.

"I was with Fidel about an hour or more," she told reporters at the airport as she left. "We were chatting, conversing. He looked good." Castro himself wrote that the meeting lasted 40 minutes and he said the two exchanged thoughts about the new U.S. president.

"I personally did not have the slightest doubt about the honesty of Obama, the 11th president since Jan. 1, 1959, when he expresses his ideas," Castro said he told Fernandez, referring to the day his band of bearded rebels toppled a dictator and took power in Cuba.



Credits: Associated Press