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New reports emerge about Castro's health
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-17 09:24
The reports about Fidel Castro's health have swirled around for years,
growing more frequent as the 79-year-old Cuban leader grows older.
Sometimes he is said to have cancer. Other times, he is said to have suffered
a series of small strokes.
Most recently, a U.S. official told The Associated Press in Washington
Wednesday that an intelligence assessment based on a wide variety of material
suggests Castro has Parkinson's disease — something rumored and laughed off by
the president as long as seven years ago.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the
information's sensitivity, emphasized the assessment is based on analysis and is
not a definitive conclusion.
Cuban officials have long dismissed reports that Castro has Parkinson's or
any other chronic ailment. Last month, parliament speaker Ricardo Alarcon
insisted "he's in excellent health" when the Cuban president didn't show at the
Ibero-American summit in Spain.
On Wednesday, authorities in Havana did not immediately respond to a request
for reaction to the latest reports about Castro's health, first published in the
The Miami Herald. The newspaper cited two unidentified U.S. government officials
as saying the CIA believed Castro had Parkinson's and has warned major American
policymakers to be prepared if he grows sick in the coming
years.
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